East Devon Council 'lacks good detailed intelligence' on town's economic wellbeing

East Devon District Council 'lacks good detailed intelligence about its towns and their economic wellbeing'.

Councillor Ben Ingham, leader of the council, admitted: "This is not a good state of affairs," when questioned at Wednesday night's full council meeting.

It came after councillor Mike Allen asked questions over the decision of the portfolio holder for economy, councillor Kevin Blakey, to commission a major study into town centres.

Councillor Allen asked for an indication of the cost proposed and in the interests of proper transparency, for the consultancy brief envisaged be put to the next Overview Committee for discussion before any expenditure is committed.

In response, councillor Ingham said: "As a council we lack good detailed intelligence about our towns and their economic wellbeing. This is not a good state of affairs.

"It is important that we are able to identify the best ways to support our towns, to prioritise our limited resources and to produce authoritative bids for third party funding.

"The research across our towns will inform the district council and each town council in ways that they better understand the strengths and weaknesses of their local economies and what the most effective actions are that they can take to improve matters."

He said that a draft specification for the work is in development, has been discussed with the chairman and deputy chairman of the Overview Committee, and that it makes sense that they should have an opportunity to discuss the proposal.

Councillor Ingham added: "Appropriate research and consultancy bids will subsequently be invited and cost will a key element of the criteria against which bids will be assessed.

"Invitees to tender will be asked to price their proposals against criteria but we are not setting a fixed price beforehand since cost competition for the work is an important consideration in judging any bids."

The same meeting heard criticism from councillors over proposals for car parking increases to take place in 12 East Devon car parks on the grounds that they had no idea as to how it would impact the towns and villages.

Councillor Paul Millar said: "The Task and Finish Forum needs to be able to properly unpick the complex relationship between how much this council charges for car parks, how that might impact on footfall and the prosperity of our towns centres, and the effect that might have on business rates.

"The fact that cabinet might ignore scrutiny and go out to public consultation without this research is really problematic.

"We've not seen so far any actual data on the patterns of usage and revenue in our car parks and I don't think we've seen a credible case to suggest that residents will suddenly flock to the emptier car parks we want residents and visitors to use."

Earlier this year, East Devon District Council put forward Axminster as the town to put forward to try and grab a share of a £675m Future High Streets Fund, but their bid was unsuccessful.

They also unsuccessfully wrote to the government to request eligibility criteria for the Fund be changed to include new towns – such as Cranbrook – which currently has to town centre.