Conversation: Devon Boudary Review Subject: Devon Boudary Review For the attention of: Mr Sam Hartley, Review Manager for the Devon Boundary Review Dear Mr Hartley, I have been reading your leaflet on the Boundary Committee Review of Devon and I note your words “In England there are too many two tier areas such as Devon where local government services are provided by two different types of councils” and you cite county councils and district councils. I note that you do not cite the third tier, GOSW (The Government Office for the South West).
I wholeheartedly agree with your premise that there are too many local government tiers for the already overburdened tax payer to continue to fund and I live in hope (but with a low expectation) that your deliberations and any resultant unitary structure subsequently set up in Devon will lighten that load. You should be aware that I lived in Berkshire when unitary authorities were established only to see the local taxation burden increased!
Having said that I wish to bring to your attention a problem that the current boundary structure has created for my village in Devon: - Smeatharpe is geographically in centre of the Blackdown Hills AONB. However within 300 yards of my house is the Mid Devon/East Devon Boundary and a quarter of a mile from me is the Devon County Council / Somerset County Council (Taunton Deane District Council) Boundary. My neighbours and I in the village sit in one of three different parishes dependant upon where in the village they live. My doctor is in Somerset, my school is in East Devon and my dentist is in Mid Devon, my Post Office was in East Devon until it was closed two years ago and the one I currently have access to in Somerset will close later this year.
I understand that since none of the councils in Somerset were interested in Unitary Authorities so no review is taking place in Somerset and whatever happens in Devon, the Blackdown Hills AONB will for ever be split between Somerset County Council (Taunton Deane District Council) and whatever structure emerges in Devon, following Exeter’s desire to become a Unitary Authority. Please consider seriously the need to have that part of the Blackdown Hills AONB that is in Devon placed under the control of one Unitary Authority – not two (or more) Authorities as at present. Being split between two county councils and three district councils as the area is at the moment is bad enough but if all that the boundary review does is replace EDDC and MDDC with two new Unitary authorities, you will have many people in Devon wondering why the expense of a review was justified if nothing changes.
Having raised the issue of cost, can you let me know how much the boundary review of Devon will cost, from the start, this January, to final implementation of whatever structure is agreed? You may feel that I have a bee in my bonnet about these issues simply because I live close to a number of boundaries, but let me give you an example of how things “fall down the gaps between local government boundaries” resulting in almost total anarchy for local residents. Smeatharpe like many other villages in the southwest was effectively requisitioned by the MOD in the Second World War so that an airfield could be built nearby to support D-day and beyond (before my time I hasten to say).
The result is that just on the outskirts of the village (as is the case for many Devon villages) sits an old WW2 airfield, abandoned in the 1950’s and returned to agriculture, with decaying concrete runways. The boundary between EDDC and MDDC runs through the middle of the old airfield.
In 2006 the single owner of the airfield sold it in 5 lots to 5 separate owners. Local residents have since discovered that these separate owners bought bits of the concrete with the intention of using their individual General Permitted Development Rights to each run 14 days of motor sports on the decaying concrete and knew that the two District Councils take little interest in their peripheries and do not talk to each other.
General Permitted Development Rights require no planning applications and no notification of such activities to local authorities. As a result, the residents of the Blackdown Hills AONB are now faced with motor sports noise and pollution almost every weekend of the year and until residents informed the district councils what was going on, they knew nothing about it.
Although EDDC and MDDC both state in their Local and Strategic plans that they do not want motor sports activities within the Blackdown Hills AONB, they have both ignored what has been happening at the periphery of their respective bailiwicks. (Residents of Smeatharpe wonder if AONB stands for Area for Oily Noisy Boyracers?)
Wherever possible it is, I submit, it is essential for the Blackdown Hills AONB to be placed within the boundary of one local authority. I fear that until that happens the Blackdown Hills AONB will not get the care and attention it needs and deserves, irrespective of all the aspirations and fine words expressed in East Devon District Councils, Mid Devon District Councils, Devon County Councils, Somerset County Councils and Taunton Deane District Councils, Local and Strategic Plans Graham Long