East Devon District Council is hiding behind red tape and blaming confidentiality for its lack of transparency at refusing to explain why it removed online comments made by its own leader amid a a complaint investigation.
The authority recently hid an online recorded comment by district council leader Councillor Paul Arnott made during a planning meeting about a mass development proposed for Exmouth.
But the district council will not tell you why it has censored Cllr Arnott’s comment, or what it is investigating, or the outcome of that probe, keeping its ‘confidential’ complaints process under wraps.
A spokesperson for East Devon District Council said that Cllr Arnott was “talking about Exmo_20” in the redacted footage.
“The footage was redacted by the monitoring officer, who is a qualified solicitor,” the spokesperson added.
The spokesperson said it could not state whether any complaint about the comments had come from someone outside the council, because its complaints process is confidential.
“We have an active complaint,” the spokesperson said.
“We cannot disclose what it is about as our complaints process is confidential.
“We cannot disclose the outcome of complaints as the process is confidential, however, it will have no bearing on the redacted footage.”
Cllr Arnott did not wish to comment.
Councillor Paul Arnott, speaking at July’s East Devon District Council strategic planning meeting. Some of his comments made at the meeting have since been redacted from a public recording. Image: East Devon District Council/YouTube .
A Devon council has confirmed a complaints process is underway after it redacted around five seconds of a speech by its leader from a recording, writes local democracy reporter Bradley Gerrard.
East Devon District Council said the brief section of footage from its July strategic planning meeting was redacted by its monitoring officer, Melanie Wellman.
Pictured here is the message shown over redacted footage of Councillor Paul Arnott speaking at July’s EDDC strategic planning meeting. Image: East Devon District Council/YouTube.
The council could not confirm who the complaint was against. A document that anonymises recent complaints to the council shows one from an MP, which went to Stage 2 but which is now listed as ‘no further action’, with the monitoring officer “liaising with the parties to explore informal resolution prior to issuing the final decision”.
A second complaint by an MP is also listed for the same reasons – ‘making false allegations’ – but this was filed on 10 September and so it is not known whether it will progress further.
The recording of the meeting, available on the council’s YouTube channel, features a statement from the council’s leader, Councillor Paul Arnott (Liberal Democrat, Coly Valley).
He appears to be making a point about the controversial Exmo_20 site, a proposed allocation in East Devon’s draft local plan.
Cllr Arnott states he can “help you protesters”, referring to some of the members of the public who attended the meeting to reiterate their feelings about the possible plot that could contain around 700 homes, and then the footage is replaced with a written message.
That message states: “A short section has been omitted following a decision under the council’s redaction procedures. The formal minutes remain available.”
When it restarts, Cllr Arnott says “or you could contact the man, Simon Jupp, his immediate predecessor, the director of corporate affairs for Pennon (the owner of South West Water) if you’ve got problems around water issues.”
The comments that remain suggest Cllr Arnott was talking about the current Exmouth & Exeter East MP, David Reed.
Tensions have emerged between Mr Reed, the Conservative MP, and his expected Liberal Democrat rival at the next General Election, Charlotte FitzGerald.
Ms FitzGerald criticised a donation made by housing developer 3West to the Conservative Association prior to Mr Reed’s election, which he registered in August 2024 as per Parliamentary rules.
Ms FitzGerald questioned whether Mr Reed should be chairing a public meeting this week (Thursday 24 September) about the Exmo_20 site, upon which 3West has revealed it is drawing up plans for.
This is in spite of East Devon’s local plan not yet being ratified, meaning the location has not been confirmed as one that is suitable for development.
Any potential planning application by 3West would ultimately be decided solely by East Devon District Council’s planning committee. MPs do not sit on council planning committees.
The only other person who could be in a position to decide a notional planning application on the Exmo_20 site would be the Planning Inspectorate, if East Devon voted to block a scheme but a developer successfully appealed that decision.
