Developing Exeter?

IKEA
Development sketch

Following yesterday's approval of outline planning permission for large IKEA and Morrison's developments in Exeter someone posed a question to me. It regards, not perhaps these specific developments but the over, and there are many, developments on the fringes of Exeter.

It has been said many times that developments such as the Science Park, Sky Park and Cranbrook are of great benefit to Exeter. Yet these sites, close as they are to Exeter, are actually under the jurisdiction of East Devon District Council (EDDC); consequently, Exeter City Council (ECC) will collect no council tax or business rate revenue from them.

Neither ECC nor EDDC have confirmed to me what new constant revenues are expected either directly or indirectly from these developments but surely there could be an entirely adverse effect on Exeter’s economy? 

I don't believe that this is the case. I believe that the benefits far outnumber and outweigh any disadvantages for Exeter. In order to know that you love something you need to know what you hate, I think this principle of need is important here.

Cranbrook
Development sketch

Firstly, to house the number of employees that will eventually be working at Science Park and Sky Park will require a huge amount of properties. The new town of Cranbrook will go some way to fulfilling this need but it will by no means be a complete solution. Therefore some of these workers will need to commute a little further, this would inevitably include from within Exeter City Council’s jurisdiction.  As a result ECC will not completely miss out on a revenue increase from the new workforce.

Similarly, a 500 home development is planned on the other side of Exeter, in the Exwick area. This too is outside the reach of ECC and is under control of Teingbridge District Council. In the same way that the workers at Science Park and Sky Park will need somewhere to live, residents of the new satellite communities will need somewhere to work and, indeed, spend. Exeter of course provides plenty of opportunities to indulge both of these needs.

Guildhall Shopping Centre
Development sketch

The new developments of IKEA and Morrison’s, alongside the redevelopment of Exeter’s Guildhall Shopping Centre and the continued vibrancy of the city’s high street help to demonstrate the unbreakable linkage between Exeter and its neighbouring communities. Cranbrook and Exwick would struggle to survive in their present forms if it weren’t for their proximity to Exeter. Meanwhile, Exeter would be unable to proceed with its impressive development programme if the opportunity for development nearby was unavailable.

It is foreseeable that, perhaps within my life, the boundaries of Exeter will become blurred or even redrawn as they have been in the not too distant past - Pinhoe is an example of this. However, I do not personally believe that Exeter is any worse off as a result of development on its borders, indeed for them not to happen might well be Exeter’s downfall.

Exeter continues its sustained trend of growth - at least that's the plan

Tonight a further two mammoth development projects for Exeter have been approved. The first is a 380 job Ikea just off the M5 next to Sandy Park. The second is a large Morrison's store as part of the major redevelopment of Police HQ at Middlemoor.

These two major employment and retail centres can surely only be good for Exeter and combined with the continuing, if apparently stilted, development of the Science Park, the more progressive development of Sky Park and the seemingly unstoppable growth at Cranbrook it is without doubt that Exeter is the largest development hub in the region.

However, the giving of the green light to Ikea and Morrison's is only the beginning. Let's not forget that development of a major Sainsbury's Distribution Centre between the Science Park and Cranbrook simply stopped when the supermarket giant claimed that it no longer suited their current plans to develop there. That site this remains empty. Such a farce could too easily be repeated with these new ventures.

I would be very interested to know how that can be avoided. Exeter is a great city, with massive potential. I'm sure that in the next 10-20 years the recent spell of growth will only continue and perhaps be almost unrecognisable. That will certainly be the case if even only half of plans currently in the pipeline come into fruition.

I hope that the plans approved today bring nothing but success and prosperity to Exeter. It really is a great city and the fact that such successful and high profile companies are choosing it as a place to invest is testament to that fact.

[Pictures; top down: Ikea planning sketch, Morrison's planning sketch, Cranbrook planning sketch, Sainsbury's land]

Exeter Togteher | City Centre march | Saturday 16th November

The EDL will be marching through Exeter this Saturday. They have cited the University's various studies and links to the Islamic and Arabic world and reason to protest their racist mantra in Exeter.

Exeter Together is an organisation which celebrates and embraces the diversity within Exeter. More than 800 people have now signed their support to Exeter Together's cause and this group will also be marching on Saturday.

The Exeter Together march will assemble in Belomnt Park at 10.30 and will begin its march at 11.00. It will then progress through the city centre to arrive in Bedford Square for a peaceful celebration rally at around 12.00.

The following roads will be subject to temporary closures as the Exeter Together march passes through:

• Blackboy Road 
• Old Tiverton Road 
• Western Way 
• Sidwell Street 
• York Road 
• Summerland Street 
• Cheeke Street 
• Paris Street 
• High Street 

These roads will be closed for as little time as possible, hopefully a max of 10 minutes. Sidwell Street and High Street will be subject to loner delays.

Its not to late to join Exeter Together. Visit www.exetertogether.wordpress.com or just come along to Belmont Park at 10.30 on Saturday.

Tolerating Intolerance

I'm a very tolerant person, I would say that I'm a liberal. As such I have no issues or prejudices with immigrants, gays etc. so I do sometimes find it hard to deal with situations, conversations or people when such prejudices arise.
Living in Devon I have come to learn that people here are really quite conservative in their outlook. Despite the fact that in recent years the ethnic diversity of the South West has increased massively, the mindset of many people seems to have been stranded in the 60s. It is perhaps true of course that racism has changed since then but only in so far as the target; years ago it was people of African descent (yes I know "we all came from Africa") but now mistrust, dislike or even hatred is directed mostly and Arabic groups, namely the Muslim community.
I have no issue whatsoever with the growth of the Muslim faith and culture in Britain. I take issue with extremists and terrorists but it pains me that the need to clarify the difference is even existent. But alas it is true that the evil deeds of the few have caused many to suspect and fear a mostly innocent community.
It arose in conversation recently that Muslims are apparently trying to impose their beliefs and customs on non-Muslims, I strongly challenge this suggestion. I do not feel that anyone is obligating me to praise Allah or that my wife (not married) should be covered in public. I believe that most Muslims are happy for non-Muslims to live as they please so long as they are afforded the same courtesy. It is true though that many of the same people who claim to be oppressed by Muslims will, in the same breath, seek to condemn Islamic traditions, and as such they themselves are then oppressing Muslims.
Another recent example is that someone cited as complaint that if we, as non-Muslims, were to visit an Islamic country then we would be somewhat obliged to conform to their standards of dress. I then thought to myself "do you oppose to Muslim women wearing the veil?" a question to which, if I had asked it, the respondent would have said yes. I considered then that this person was not content to have imposed on them the Islamic standard of dress but at the same time they would openly impose European standards of dress on Muslims.
I think perhaps that I should leave this here for fear that I might upset or anger too many people, particularly those who's views I have cited, and this is something that I most definitely don't want to do. I just needed to vent my thoughts as I don't want to have to argue this with the people concerned.
I'm not religious but the Bible taught us to love thy neighbour, but failing that I'd hope we could at least tolerate them.

Syria - 31/08/13

Maybe I was wrong. It seems that David Cameron failed in achieving his ambition of war after losing a vote in the Commons on the matter by just 13 votes. Now though morals are torn; nobody knows whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

There are plenty of people who have argued against intervention into Syria and their reasoning has mostly been justified and understandable. They don’t want another war.

As Ed Miliband has made quite clear, the “shadow” of Iraq is still looming large in the consciousness of the UK and that is a fair point. The invasion of Iraq a decade ago was at best a botched job and at worst an unmitigated legal, political and humanitarian disaster and it is now clear that lessons have been learnt in the intervening ten years.

Technically, the Prime Minister has the power, under Royal Prerogative, to deploy UK forces wherever and whenever he sees necessary, but to do so would be nothing short of political suicide. Military action without a Parliamentary mandate has not been taken since the sinking of the Belgrano at the start of the Falklands War in 1982 and the controversy of that incident has still not passed so one can only imagine the fury that would inevitably follow if Cameron went ahead with a Syrian deployment irrespective of Parliament’s objections.

Cameron has suffered great political damage, in terms of credibility, following his defeat on this issue. After he had fought with such strong words, backed by some initial action at the UN, he must surely have thought that he had accurately gauged the mood of the public and of his party, clearly, he had not. It is always damaging for a Prime Minister to lose an important vote in the Commons but, as the BBC’s Nick Robinson has said, it is without modern precedent that a PM has lost control of his foreign policy.

However, considering that it seems Cameron had misread the national mood, it has to be asked if he will actually suffer or benefit from this turn of events. After all, if Cameron believed that the public had wanted to intervene then if he had won in the Commons and had intervened then that would have been a political success. But now that it seems the public mood is against intervention it could be seen as a political success that Cameron showed restraint and has not intervened.

Meanwhile, the US’ own position seems a little less sure after the UK committed to not intervene. John Kerry gave a speech on Friday in which he states that US intelligence reports show that the chemical weapons attack was definitely carried out by the Assad regime and that it killed 1429 people. These numbers are 1100 more than the initial figure presented by the Syrian Rebels and are strongly challenged by the Syrian and Russian Governments.

Now that his claims are being questioned and his allies are rapidly leaving his side Obama seems to be losing his own determination for action in Syria. The US President says that there is “No decision yet” this is completely in contrast to the words of him and his team earlier in the week when US forces were said to be “Ready to go”.

And as the great game of Politics is being played across the World the very reason for it all appears to have gotten lost. People are dying in Syria. Civilians are being killed, mostly in the crossfire but probably by both sides. Regardless of who is killing who and with what one thing is clear; Bashar al-Assad is overseeing a bloody civil war in which tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions have been displaced.

All this could end if the present regime stepped aside, but I say, if that is not going to happen then regime change is justified. That will be the only way to prevent further civilian casualties and that is what must be achieved. The death of those who support neither side and just wish to live their lives safe from harm must be protected and if we are the ones who must protect them then I say that we must.

I would urge the UK Parliament to reconsider. I for one feel deeply uncomfortable knowing that my Government is currently doing nothing to prevent the death of innocent people. I know that not everyone shares my view that we are the ones who should do something. But if not us, then who?

I’ll leave you with these final thoughts. If we were caught in civil war and it was our children who were homeless, our young brothers who had to fight highly trained and well-equipped armies, our mothers and grandmothers who had been killed with chemical weapons wouldn't we want help? Wouldn't want to be protected? Wouldn't we want to be saved?

Think on that, please.

Syria - as of today

At the time of writing the UK, US and French Governments are poised to intervene in Syria's bloody Civil War after it was alleged that the Assad Regime used chemical weapons against its own people.

The momentum now seems unstoppable; parliament's have been recalled, troops have been readied and UN resolutions have been tabled.

All roads, it seems, lead to War.

Presently talk is of doing everything and anything necessary to avoid the killing of civilians. But I don't buy that. In Libya we took a similar route but we soon started striking strategic and symbolic targets rather than ones solely of interest for purposes of life preservation. In that case we got lucky and the Gadaffi Regime was quickly toppled but I fear that the Assad Regime may prove to be a tougher nut to crack.

Firstly, it is now almost universally accepted that pro-Assad forces have used chemical weapons. This demonstrates that the the Syrian armed forces have the firepower and determination unlike anything else that the West has fought this Century. I think it unlikely that, if war does come, the Assad Regime would use chemical weapons against a coalition force but they have proved that they can.

Second, Assad has some fairly tough allies. Both Russia and Iran have stated their objections towards any foreign military intervention into Syria. Again, it seems unlikely that either of these two nations would openly confront Western forces if and when they do intervene, but nonetheless they will most definitely find ways of hindering any efforts made.

Thirdly, this will never end with the prevention of civilian casualties, simply because that is an open-ended, ambiguous and plainly unachievable goal. As I see it the only way that the US and its allies will be satisfied with the situation is when they have toppled Assad and installed a democratically elected, Western-Sympathetic leader. In short, I believe this will end only with regime change.

I don't want another war. But equally, I don't want to leave the Syrian people in fear of their leader. And so it is that I conclude with my support for intervention into Syria. Talk has failed, sanctions have failed. Maybe a few Cruise Missiles will do the job.

I do not condone war but in this case it seems that we cannot stand by as chemical weapons are used to suppress people who simply desire democracy.

However, I also think it must be made clear that we need to be sure of it is we are supporting. There are those among the rebels who seek to create a radical Islamic state and we need to be sure that this does not happen. Not because I am Islamaphobic, far from it, but because if we are to oversee or facilitate regime change then we need to ensure that the new regime is free, fair and democratically elected.

For now that is all I have to say on the matter. I fear that I have rambled and have not been at all coherent. I also suspect that I will be revisiting this topic soon.

Life Wars IV: A New Job

In December I quit my job at HMV. As much as I enjoyed my work I didn’t enjoy being treated quite so poorly when it came to working arrangements and stability, heck, I never even signed a contract. I soon began to regret making myself unemployed. In hindsight it is clear that I should have lined up a new job before quitting my current one. But hindsight is a truly wonderful thing.

It took over half a year to get a new job, and it wasn’t for lack of trying that I was jobless for so long. I reckon I sent over 200 applications in the period from 31^st December to 1^st July and in all that time I only had interviews for three jobs. One of which, I got. *smiley face*

In May, I applied for two jobs in the Residential Department of Ashfords LLP in Exeter. I was called for an initial interview for these and did a good enough job to be called back for a follow-up. Then, I was unsuccessful. This hurt, I knew I had done well, I just knew. So I asked what it was that had meant I hadn’t got the job. The answer: the position was withdrawn following “commercial consideration”. That hurt worse, knowing that I had wasted my time attending two interviews only for there to be no vacancy anyway, and knowing that that was the only reason I didn’t get the job. I got the usual “we’ll hold onto your details” spiel and went and had a sulk.

Then, to my surprise on June 25^th I got an email from the HR woman who had interviewed me previously, advising me that a new vacancy had arisen in the Accounts Department. I was delighted, delighted to have been remembered because, as I later found out, I had been suggested for this position before it had even been publicly advertised.

Here’s a brief timeline of the events that followed:

Tuesday 25^th – invited to interview | Thursday 27^th - initial interview | Friday 28^th – 9.15am – invited to second interview with Chief Financial Officer at 11am the same day | Monday 1^st – first day in my new job.

And so far so good. After my first month I feel settled and competent in my new role. Having passed the awkward training and introduction phase I already feel like part of the team, especially now certain human irritants are no longer present.

Mum said I was boring enough to work in Accounts, but I think she was misguided in her view. The [immediate] people I work with are all great fun to work with, but also just great fun.

Who knew, being an Accounts Assistant is fun. *another smiley face*