I have long written about my deep-felt feelings on the political structure of local politics. I am a firm believer in an apolitical system, as party politics and tribal warfare constantly muddy the waters.
Personally, I couldn’t give a flying fig which party is running the Council; I just want everyone to pull together for the benefit of our town and its community.
There is constant bickering, blocking, and deep secrecy amongst ‘the tribes’ merely to stop someone else getting an edge on power. This is so damaging for our town. The egos are huge and unworthy of the abilities of those at loggerheads. I cannot believe that our best interests are a priority when this small-mindedness continues unabated.
In my view they all need their heads banged together. It would be a big step forward if the leadership were to keep to its intention of being more open, transparent, and inclusive about everything that is going on, engaging more with each other and being transparent on all machinations in the pipeline or taking place.
As we have a ‘hung’ Council, I would have thought that all decisions should be discussed jointly and announced jointly. Afterall, the councillors are supposed to have been elected to serve us, not themselves!
As for the proposed reforming of local government via devolution. The council meeting on this very serious issue only managed to attract a very tiny audience—one journalist, plus Kevin Foster and Andrew Barrand. Sadly, I couldn’t attend, and I presume that nobody else was interested, but actually we should be. To be honest, it is all pretty boring stuff to listen to, but if we don’t take an interest, we can’t really complain about the direction of events afterwards.
This brings me to the Fragrance Group, who need questioning on their motives and stopped in their tracks before Torbay is renamed ‘Fragrance Bay.’ Their ambition to knock down the ‘Inn on the Green’ to build a car park on a prime site on Paignton’s seafront is frankly outrageous and shows conclusively that they have no idea or appreciation of our landscape and its beauty.
They clearly forget, or don’t care, why tourists come to this area of the UK.
The Fragrance Group has already shown in spades their disastrous lack of sympathy for our coastline by erecting probably the ugliest hotel ever with the new Corbyn Head Hotel. It is so awful and looks like a municipal car park or a very large public convenience block. Add to this the equally ghastly rabbit hutches erected on Palace Gardens, and it is clear that the town does not register on any level as being important to them by adding to the beauty of the town, just making as much cash as possible.
I have had my own business for over 40 years and so understand the value of money and the need to make as much as possible on every deal, but stripping a landscape of its beauty is totally beyond me. They could have created something beautiful, but they decided on eyesores instead. How the Dickens did all this pass through our planning department?
It needs to stop now. Our Council needs to draw a line with this group before even more damage is done. It is rumoured that they are now developing an alternative proposal for a further 67 homes, including a proportion of affordable housing, on the former Palace Hotel site. This would be a disaster if it were allowed to happen.
Just think back to when the initial planning permission was given, and we were all so excited that a new 5-star hotel would be built on the site of the once historic and extremely popular Palace Hotel. Just a couple of minutes on Google would have alerted even the most ill-informed that the Fragrance Group has a history of signing contracts with councils to develop old hotels and then stating a few months later that they have found that it is no longer economically viable.
Of course, the legal department should have been up to the task of making sure that the contracts were binding and that they included various (very large) penalty clauses. That would be a normal business contract. The one saving grace in this debacle is that a couple of months ago, David Thomas confirmed to me that whilst he was on the Council, he would never let anyone build anything other than a luxury hotel on this beautiful site.
I sincerely hope that you are all over this, David, and feel sure that this is one extremely important development that can bring the Council together with one voice to stop this raiding and trashing of the natural beauty of our Bay.
On another subject, Mr Marmite himself scored a flanker last week. Everyone thought that Nigel Farage would take the £100m Musk incentive in a heartbeat.
However, he must have silenced a lot of critics by turning it down. On every level the money would have damned Farage, so at least we now know he will remain his own man, love him or hate him. Personally, I can’t see the difference between Russia interfering in elections around the globe and foreign nationals buying a political party.
Life is all about perception, and it is an area that seems to be a mystery to Keir Starmer. I am at a loss as to why he will not call for a national inquiry into the Pakistani grooming gangs.
Even some of his own MPs are now calling for it, as is Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. It is a very dangerous stance for the Prime Minister to take, as the CPS, of which he was head, has a history of not prosecuting paedophiles like Jimmy Savile. One starts to wonder why he doesn’t have the motivation. All you need for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.