Our most recent community meeting was held on Wednesday January 27th in the Exeter Community Centre.  We heard from guest speakers and shouted a big 'hooray' for having been successful in raising the £1.2m funding required to save the Community Centre from being sold off. 

Click here to read or print the January 2010 Newsletter which has been distributed by our volunteer members to nearly 1,000 households across the St David's area.

The meeting also provided the opportunity for local residents to raise specific concerns with our Neighbourhood Policing team led by Chris Leisk. The team reassured local residents with a full account of ongoing measures being undertaken to combat crime and anti social behaviour.

'Single Unitary for Devon' - Devon County Council...

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Government announces unitary authority for Exeter

The Minister of State for Local Government issued a written statement to Parliament on Wednesday 10 February 2010 on the future of local government structures in Devon, Norfolk and Suffolk.

As widely predicted, the Government rejected advice from its Financial Advisors and the independent Boundary Committee and announced it would seek to establish a new unitary authority for Exeter (on its existing boundaries) with no change in the rest of the county – even though she admitted the proposal did not meet the Governments own affordability criterion.

The orders to create the new authority will now be laid before the House and if successful would result in the creation of a new unitary authority by April 2011.

The view of Devon County Council is that the creation of a separate Exeter Unitary is unwelcome and unnecessary and not in the interests of the people of Devon or Exeter – especially in the current climate. Not only would it tear the heart out of the county but it will be a costly distraction from vital work to help the county and city recover from recession.

Prudent estimates put the cost of creating the new authority at £25 million over the next five years and – if services were maintained at current levels – means the average band D council tax bill in Exeter will rise by £203 per year.

Devon County Council believes the decision is madness” and has pledged to fight it using all means possible

Background

In December 2009 The Boundary Committee for England published its advice to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on unitary local government in Devon. It put forward a proposal for a single unitary council for the current Devon county area.

In the Committee's judgement, the other draft proposal for two unitary authorities (one for Exeter and Exmouth and another for the remainder of the county) is unlikely to have the capacity to deliver all the outcomes specified by the Secretary of State's criteria. The Committee noted that there was strong opposition to removing Exeter from the rest of the county for local government purposes and does not believe that this pattern is likely to be supported by a broad cross-section of partners and stakeholders in Devon.

The Committee also recommended that the original proposal for unitary status for Exeter from Exeter City Council should not be implemented. This was based on the Secretary of State's previous concerns about such an authority's ability to meet the affordability criterion.

The Committee's report is available at http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/boundary-reviews/all-reviews/south-west/devon/devon-structural-review