Tag Archives: Democracy

Ultra vires

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Exeter City Council has voted to suspend parts of its constitution, despite not having the power do so. 

The sentiment that the first casualty of war is truth has been attributed to many sources, including the Greek dramatist Aeschylus. These days, at least in public life, truth is a vanishing commodity which doesn’t require a war to depose it, so we would do better to look at what else is under threat as the coronavirus sweeps through society. I refer only to the precariousness of our constitutional structures, not to the human costs of the virus.

Democratic accountability itself is wobbling. Some ministers treat parliamentary select committees and journalists with contempt by simply refusing to answer their questions. The default answer by government departments and ministers to any enquiry is a bland statement about how focussed and relentless the government is on ramping up whatever the tabloid press says needs ramping up.

The other pillar of society under threat is the rule of law. We have a now-invisible prime minister whose advice to the monarch on the prorogation of (an unhelpful) parliament was so blatantly illegal that it took the courts no time at all to overturn it. Since then we have seen (a supine) parliament nod through a massive set of emergency powers with next to no scrutiny, and their partial implementation by one or two over-zealous constabularies before the laws were actually in force. None of this is to argue that the emergency powers were neither necessary nor urgent. I simply use what has happened as an illustration of changing norms in public life and our willingness at times of crisis to look to “the authorities” to watch out for us, however driven by amoral expediency those authorities are perceived to be.

So what happened at Exeter City Council on 21 April 2020 should not perhaps have been seen as shocking, though indeed it was. Included in a long series of recommendations from the executive of senior councillors for approval by the full council was a set of measures intended to keep the council functioning through the coronavirus crisis. Central to these was an uncontentious amendment to make sure that the operation of powers delegated by the politicians to officers would not be interrupted if the officers to whom the powers were delegated fell ill.

Additional recommendations – to allow councillors to be absent without losing their seats, to arrange for meetings to be held remotely and to empower the city solicitor to amend the council’s constitution to keep it in line with any new legislative requirements – were also passed without comment.

But the 4th recommendation in the set – which was voted on separately from the rest – is where the council overstepped the mark. The recommendation adopted on 21 April states:

(4) suspending Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution and Standing Orders 47 and 48 for the next six months, effective immediately, to allow for the Council’s Constitution to be amended by a simple majority of Council; [1]

The need for this specific measure is not spelt out. It is merely included as part of the wider package to enable the council to continue functioning in the event of officers and councillors being incapacitated. Standing Orders 47 and 48 set out the procedures for amending or suspending other standing orders.

Articles of the constitution take precedence over standing orders. Article 15, which the council has voted to suspend for six months, includes the unambiguous sentence: “The Articles of this Constitution may not be suspended”. There is no let-out clause allowing them to be suspended in certain circumstances. Nor is there is a general power  in the Coronavirus Act 2020 and subordinate regulations for councils to ignore their own constitutions.

The articles can of course be amended or revoked by following the approved procedure (Article 14) but they cannot be suspended. Given that Article 15 also provides for the suspension of Standing Order 48, it is difficult to see why the council should remove the power to suspend 48, since its own suspension is one of the stated objectives.

It is not as if councillors were unaware of this. At the executive meeting on 7 April, when the recommendations to full council were finalised, Green Party Councillor Diana Moore draw attention to the impossibility of suspending Articles 14 and 15. She was told by the leader, Councillor Phil Bialyk, that further information on her point would be provided in writing. By the time of the full council meeting Councillor Moore had not received the information. She therefore raised the point again, only to be told by Councillor Bialyk that he was not allowing any changes to the executive’s recommendations because they had been discussed fully there, supported by the leaders of the two opposition groups, and all issues were resolved (not quite, Phil). The offending recommendation was carried in full council with only the four councillors in the Progressive Group voting against.

In normal times, I would be among those rapidly accusing the council of acting beyond its powers – ultra vires – in suspending Articles 14 and 15. But these are not normal times and the pressures on local authorities – particularly ones like Exeter which are commendably doing a great deal to support vulnerable people and organisations – are too intense to expect them to engage in what many people will regard as unimportant nit-picking.

But it’s not unimportant. Even in difficult times, we should not allow public bodies unilaterally to set aside the rules. If the council makes use of any of the freedoms it thinks it has given itself by the suspension of Articles 14 and 15, there will be a reckoning when we are through the crisis.

Meanwhile, there’ll be a good news post for next week.

 

NOTES:

[1]        This is where the post gets a bit anoraky. The council’s constitution is set out at http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=382&MId=6530&Ver=4&Info=1 . Part 2 lists the Articles which govern the role and powers of councillors, the committee structure and decision making by the council. Part 4 lists procedural rules which govern day to day council business, including standing orders for the conduct of meetings (4b).

It’s no longer about Brexit

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The government’s ability to suspend parliament at will must be challenged on the streets, and in Exeter this Saturday.

The British constitution finally broke down on Wednesday. A government that lost its majority at the last general election and whose party attracted minimal support at this year’s EU and local elections forced the monarch to suspend Parliament and did so within the conventions of our constitution. As a demonstration of what is wrong with our governing arrangements, it cannot be bettered.

Our constitution is not written down. It is a mix of law and convention. It is a convention that the monarch accepts the advice of the prime minister, including on whether to suspend parliament. There are no enforceable rules about how this advice must be framed. So in practice, any government – even with a majority of one and propped up by a Northern Ireland party whose own track record towards parliaments leaves much to be desired – can get rid of parliament whenever it is convenient to do so. This and other uses of so-called royal prerogative powers have no place in the modern world.

Leaving aside the question of what is the point of a monarchy which is no more than a rubber stamp, where do we go now? The long term solution is for the UK to have a written constitution. Meanwhile we the people need to send a clear message to our government that its conduct is not acceptable. It does not matter whether you are for or against Brexit. The practice of suspending parliament could be used to enable any government to avoid scrutiny on any controversial measure.

Exeter has a long tradition of political pluralism. In the civil war of the 17th century, when parliament was set aside by two other tyrants – King Charles I and Oliver Cromwell – the city’s allegiance wobbled between the two sides. Hopefully, without the Earl of Bedford’s or General Faifax’s troops to coerce us, we can send a resoundngly inclusive rejection of the government’s actions. So, remainers and leavers, people of all parties and none, join the demonstration against the government this Saturday 31 August at 11am in Exeter’s Bedford Square.

What’s going on at Clifton Hill?

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Exeter City Council’s decision to close the Clifton Hill Sports Centre and sell off the site and surrounding green space raises several important questions.

The story so far

One of nature’s reminders of human fragility was the heavy snow in March 2018 which damaged the roof of the Clifton Hill Sports Centre, resulting in its immediate closure.  Very quickly the City Council began suggesting that the facility would never re-open, a decision approved by the Council’s Executive on 12 June and endorsed by a specially-convened full Council meeting the following day [1].  In addition, the Council agreed a budget for the demolition of the sports centre and authorised the City Surveyor to include all the surrounding green space in a sale if that offered best value.  It also approved:

  • a budget of over £3 million for improvements to other sports facilities in the city; and
  • a last-minute proposal from the Leader of Council, made at the Executive meeting, to provide £150k to cover the shortfall faced by the Newtown Community Association in building replacement premises in the adjacent Belmont Park.

A petition objecting to the Council’s plans attracted 1,500 signatures, and separate campaigns have sprung up to save the building and the green space.

The first set of questions: why is the plan inconsistent with current Council aims and policies?

Health.  The proposal to build on a green field site of some 4.6 ha in an inner-city area flies in the face of all the evidence about the health benefits of open space [2].  It’s true that most of the area is not public open space in the sense that payment is required to access the leased facilities; but it is nonetheless a chunk of open space that is non-polluting.  An impartial report by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology [3] makes the following key points:

  • Areas with more accessible green space are associated with better mental and physical health.
  • The risk of mortality caused by cardiovascular disease is lower in residential areas that have higher levels of ‘greenness’.
  • There is evidence that exposure to nature could be used as part of the treatment for some conditions.

Wildlife.  Irrespective of the extent of public access, green space area provides a home for wildlife in an often hostile city environment.  The joint City Council/Devon Wildlife Trust initiative Exeter Wild City has as one of its objectives “Enhance and protect the wildlife value of green space in the city”.  As an old landfill site, the area would be ideal for wild flowers, to be pollinated by bees as part of a network (see next point).

Green Infrastructure [4].  Although much of the Green Infrastructure Strategy for Exeter focusses on new development, the Local Plan Core Strategy states that it “aims to promote and preserve biodiversity and green infrastructure across the city”.  A look at a map of Exeter shows that the green spaces of Belmont Park and the Clifton Hill site offer a clean green corridor from Blackboy Road towards Heavitree Road.  Not only would this provide an attractive and healthy alternative to walking on our traffic-filled roads, it would form – with private gardens – a key part of a green network enabling bees (and other insects) to spread their pollen around the city without encountering substantial gaps.

Public assets

Land is in short supply in Exeter.  The Council has just agreed two important and welcome measures which depend on the availability of publicly owned land for their success.  Why, then, is the Council set on selling off land it already owns?

Sport and recreation

The Council has agreed to spend £3 million of public money in improving sports facilities despite the fact that it has no strategy for their role and development.  In June 2016, fresh from winning the all-out Council elections, the lead councillor for health and well-being (and many other things), Councillor Bialyk, stated that he would “sign off and help implement the City Sports Strategy and Playing Pitch Strategy” [5].  In March 2018 the Council responded to a Freedom Information Act request about the Sports Strategy as follows: “…to date the Council has not adopted such a strategy. A Parks & Play Strategy, Playing Pitch, Built Sports and Leisure Facilities and Sports Development Strategies will be produced during 2018 underpinning an overarching Physical Activity Strategy” [5].  So why is the Council not waiting for these many, doubtless illuminating, strategies before spending £3 million in, presumably, a non-strategic way?  Why not save the cost of producing the strategies in the first place?

The second set of questions:  why the haste and lack of discussion of alternatives?

As noted above, the proposal has been rushed through the Council machinery at high speed.  Why?  During the full Council debate on 13 June, the Tory opposition called for a pause for breath, but Labour voted this down.  No reason for the haste has been given.

Excessive haste often leads to ill-informed decisions.  The officer report must have been drawn up in a hurry, because it contained errors and omissions.  For example:

  • The report states that the leases for the golf driving range and the rifle club are annual leases. They are not.
  • The report does not explain that the lease for the ski slope runs until December 2022, with no break clause.
  • The wider health and biodiversity benefits of the green space were not even flagged up, let alone discussed.

Haste also leads to inconsistent undertakings and decisions.  For example:

  • At the Executive meeting on 12 June, Councillor Bialyk said “any development of the site would be subject to consultation”. But the recommendations, subsequently adopted by the full Council, state: “4. Delegated authority be given to the City Surveyor to take necessary steps to ensure the land is used for residential accommodation and not used for purpose-built student accommodation.”  So if you can have anything you like as long as it’s housing, what’s the point of the consultation?

 

  • On the same point, where does the planning system come in? Any housing on the site would require the Council to grant planning permission.  The adoption of resolution 4 comes close to anticipating the outcome of what should be a distinct and separate process.  Given that the land is not allocated for housing in what passes for the Local Plan, and no planning permission exists, how is the Council going to sell the land to ensure it issued for housing.  And if the land is sold with some sort of covenant requiring housing, what happens if the Planning Committee turns down an application for planning permission?  Who would buy the land given such conditions?

 

  • Indeed, the authority given to the City Surveyor is muddled. As well as resolution 4 (above) resolution 3 states: “Delegated authority be given to the City Surveyor to include [with the sports centre site] the sale of the adjacent driving range, ski slope and Exeter Small Bore Rifle Club areas of the Clifton Hill site as a single development site if this offers the best value to the Council”.  But, hang on, read the words of the Leader at the full Council meeting: “the City Surveyor would not be able to make decisions to sell all or part of the site without further Member involvement through the appropriate democratic process”.  So what exactly has been delegated?  Or did the officer who produced the report and the draft resolutions – not the City Surveyor, by the way – hope that this might be slipped through unnoticed?

 

  • It’s also difficult to resist picking up on a piece of what might just be sloppy drafting. Resolution 1 states: “Clifton Hill Sport Centre be sold to generate a capital receipt”.  Note that this refers to the building being sold.  Yet resolution 10 provides for “up to £150,000 to demolish Clifton Hill Sports Centre to secure the site”.  Are they selling it or demolishing it?  I think we should be told.

And then there’s the lack of answers to questions raised in both meetings.  Unusually, the normally comatose Tory opposition was on the ball, asking some important questions, such as why had maintenance been allowed to get so far in arrears?  Did the Labour leadership answer?  Of course not.  Though to be fair, the officer report highlights the central government cuts in local authority funding as a reason for prioritising front-line services over maintenance, a policy that might now usefully be revisited.

Pause for thought might also have obviated a complaint from Exeter Green Party to the Council’s Monitoring Officer alleging that Labour councillors, whose party owns the freehold of a property adjacent to the site, should have declared a financial interest in the decision or sought a dispensation allowing them to vote.

Finally, is the Council throwing good money after bad?  The officer report includes this alarming comment: “The on-going maintenance of the facility has also been hindered by the contractual split of responsibilities between the Council as landlord and Legacy Leisure/Parkwood Leisure as the facility operator, and the time taken to negotiate whose responsibility repair and other works are” [6].  If similar problems are occurring at the other leisure centres – and since it’s a single contract, that’s a reasonable assumption – what guarantees do we have that the new investment will not lead to similar maintenance problems with the present contractor?

Can we learn anything from all this?

Yes.  First, that major decisions are best taken at a sensible pace with full consideration of all relevant information and watertight paperwork.  The process has all the characteristics of a “bounce” (an expression used by civil servants when trying to persuade ministers that they must agree to a risky course of action, and at once).  Unforeseen consequences are a common outcome.

Second, current local government processes work against effective scrutiny.  Lead councillors were simply able to ignore questions they didn’t want to answer.  At full Council meetings members are only allowed one supplementary question, which significantly reduces the ability to probe.  The proposal did not go to a Scrutiny Committee, where there is a theoretical possibility of pinning down the leadership, but nowhere near the level of scrutiny given by Parliamentary Select Committees.

Third, local authorities where one party has an impregnable majority can get away with pretty well anything.

NOTES:

[1]  The Council papers are worth reading, and are quoted from in this post.  The key documents are:

the officer report that went to both meetings (http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/documents/s64238/Built%20Sports%20and%20Leisure%20Facilities%20Plan%20Report%20for%20Executive%20June%202018%20FINAL.pdf );

the minutes of the Executive meeting (http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/documents/g5306/Public%20minutes%2012th-Jun-2018%2017.30%20Executive.pdf?T=11) ;

and the minutes of the Extraordinary Council Meeting (http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/documents/g6047/Printed%20minutes%2013th-Jun-2018%2018.00%20Extraordinary%20Meeting%20of%20the%20Council.pdf?T=1 )

[2]  See, for example, the following reports:

http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_349054_en.html

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/improving-publics-health/access-green-and-open-spaces-and-role-leisure-services

https://naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2016/11/29/maximising-the-benefits-our-green-spaces-have-for-the-nations-health/

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/357411/Review8_Green_spaces_health_inequalities.pdf

[3]  Available at http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/POST-PN-0538?utm_source=directory&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=PN538

[4]  Green Infrastructure is defined in the Core Strategy as: A network of, often interconnected, waterways, woodlands, wildlife habitats, parks and other natural areas and green spaces which supports the natural and ecological processes and is integral to the health and quality of life of sustainable communities by encouraging sustainable movement, recreational opportunities and/or climate change mitigation

[5]  Minutes of People Scrutiny Committee 2 June 2016 at http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=626&MId=4825&Ver=4 item 6

[6]  See https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/sports_strategy_document#incoming-1123044 .

Put out some flags!

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Two important decisions this month show that Exeter City Council could at last be facing up to the real challenges confronting the city.

First, building more homes

After a long – very long – gestation period in the shadows, the Council’s proposal to set up a housing development company has burst into the sunlight.  Put simply, the plan is to set up a series of Council-controlled linked companies to build houses of the sort the communities need rather than what the volume housebuilders are prepared to offer.  To fund the housing, the companies will first of all build houses on Council-owned land, sell them at open-market prices and use the profits to fund what will be in practice public sector housing development, for sale and for rent [1].

Setting up a housing development company is not new: other councils have done it as a solution, even if only a partial one, to our housing crisis. But it is very encouraging to see Exeter City Council coming forward with a practical well-thought through plan of action (and not just another “strategy”).  There will doubtless be wrinkles to iron out, but the proposal deserves widespread support.

Second, beyond more homes and into wider development

The Council’s Executive had a busy meeting on 10 July.  Apart from the housing plan, they also considered a paper with the mind-numbing title of “Sustainable Financing Model for Exeter Infrastructure” [2].  But the content is quite the reverse of dull.  What is proposed is the creation of a publicly-owned City Development Fund to pay for infrastructure that will address congestion, urban sprawl, and inchoate development on a scale far greater than can be achieved with the housing development company.  The central idea is that the Council and public sector partners pool their land and other assets against which significant finance can be raised as borrowing.  Savings can be made by pooling overall control of projects, which reduces the need to spend on professional services for individual schemes (remember the £5 million and rising on services for Pete’s Pool before even a foot of tarmac is dug up!)

Senior councillors have agreed the officer recommendation that the model should not be based on partnerships with the private sector on the grounds that experience shows that the private sector ends up calling the shots in such arrangements.  For those of us concerned that Exeter could end up with something like the Haringey Development Vehicle [3], this decision is a profound relief. As with housing, the private sector cherry picks sites for development that will generate an average 20% return on the investment, money which goes to distant shareholders rather than be reinvested directly in Exeter.

The officer paper recognises that there is much more work to be done in fleshing out how the fund will work.  The major risks are recognised.  Questions that immediately occur to me include:

  • Given that planning policy controls in Exeter are weak, how does the Council plan stop private developers carrying on cherry-picking?
  • The fund is said to be available to cover Greater Exeter. Are the surrounding Tory-run Councils bought into a proposal intended to make life difficult for their private sector friends?
  • Will the City Council have enough assets of their own if other public sector partners won’t play?
  • How will the Council engage communities in its development plans?

Unlike the housing development company, this is untried ground for a local authority.  But there’s huge potential, both for our environment and our democracy if we get this right.

So what’s changing?

Both these proposals are inspiring.  They recognise that the self-interest of private sector has for too long given priority to shareholder expectations and failed to respond to what communities need and want.  We’ve had nearly 40 years of governments peddling neo-liberal economics as the default position, and now our local authority is turning round and starting to restore a civilised approach to development.

NOTES

[1]   The details, including the business case, are set out in a Council paper at http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=112&MId=5310&Ver=4 item 14 of the agenda.  The full Council is due to rubber stamp the proposals on 24 July.

[2]   As note [1], item 10 of the agenda

[3]  See for example https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/lendlease-warns-haringey-council-over-planned-development-vehicle-cancellation-57185

Our planners’ cat is out of the bag

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Consultation on the Greater Exeter Strategic Plan (GESP) looks like being an expensive and time-wasting ritual.

Beware of too sublime a sense
Of your own worth and consequence.
The man who dreams himself so great,
And his importance of such weight,
That all around in all that’s done
Must move and act for him alone,
Will learn in school of tribulation
The folly of his expectation.

(From The Retired Cat by William Cowper, 1791)

Last week CPRE Devon arranged a public meeting to discuss the emerging Greater Exeter Strategic Plan (GESP).  The room was packed with over 160 people, thus giving the lie to those who believe that people aren’t interested in spatial planning.

The formal presentations – one from the Growth Point and one from the GESP team – didn’t add much to the store of existing knowledge.  After all, the Plan doesn’t exist yet, so how can anyone say anything about it?  What we did discover is that the GESP timetable is slipping badly:  at one time their website stated the consultation draft would be out in January 2018, but today’s timetable is that it will appear in “Autumn 2018”.  We also discovered something else that I don’t think we were meant to discover, about which more in a moment.

The last platform speaker was the East Devon MP, Sir Hugo Swire.  I don’t usually have a lot of time for his views [1] but on this occasion he said some sensible things.  Like pointing out that writing a plan to predict our needs 22 years hence – the plan is to cover the period up to 2040 – is an unrealistic endeavour given the pace of technological change which affects social behaviour, service provision and employment patterns.  Or reminding us that there is brownfield land for housing within and immediately around Exeter which could be used up without building on green fields and forcing people to commute even further into the city’s employment zones.  And having a pot at the volume housebuilders and their standard house designs which are out of keeping with any of our vernacular architectures.  He then joined in the area’s favourite sport of bashing Exeter City Council’s ruling Labour group.

After the coffee break and the departure of the MP we were treated to a party political broadcast, masquerading as a question, from the Labour county councillor for Alphington and Cowick.  Then I caught the Chair’s eye and asked two questions.  The first related to my hobby-horse on housing density [2] which attracted no response from the platform or anywhere else except from an audience member who seemed not to understand the difference between high density and high rise.

The second was on the GESP planning process.  I have a rule that I don’t publicly criticise civil servants or local government officers by name, on the grounds that unless they’ve gone rogue they are doing their political bosses’ bidding.  So I shall simply refer to the recipient of my question as The Planner.  Prefacing my remarks with a well-received (by the audience) statement that planning in this country was done to us, not by us, I asked The Planner whether he thought the paltry 6 weeks being allowed for comment on the GESP consultation draft was fair.  The Planner said it was indeed fair, on the grounds that people never responded until right at the end of the consultation period however long it was.

Stumped by the non sequitur of the reply, my supplementary question was that they should at least now publish the completed evidence studies commissioned in support of the plan.  That way, those of us who couldn’t pay for armies of consultants to read the stuff could do some preparation ourselves before the consultation draft came out.  And this is where the cat’s head became visible in the opening of the bag.

The Planner paused for thought, presumably recognising the reasonableness of the question.  He then conceded that it might be possible to publish some studies, but not those which would give any clues as to what would be in the draft plan.  Hang on, I said, from a sedentary position– the Chair was a man of tolerance and wisdom – you’re saying that some planning policies have already been decided and the evidence has been commissioned to back up those decisions?  You’re putting words into my mouth, said The Planner, but I didn’t hear him deny it.

So now we know what the secretive Greater Exeter Visioning Board [3] was doing two years ago.  It was deciding the outline content of what is to become the GESP.  And the evidence was then commissioned to back up those key decisions, not to expose them to challenge.  It’s an easy process:  you just tell the consultants what assumptions and constraints to build in, and you end up with an impressive-looking piece of “evidence” that will be a wow at a public examination of the plan.

I wasn’t alone in complaining about the 6-week consultation period.  A practitioner far more experienced than I am commented that the mandatory period used to be 12 weeks, and 8 weeks was regarded as the minimum for best practice purposes.  How were organisations whose committees met every 6 weeks going to prepare their comments?  That cut no ice with The Planner either.

Interestingly,  Exeter’s chief planning officer recently told our Green Party councillor that the 6-week period was necessary because the GESP had to be produced as quickly as possible so that the City Council could put in place a new local plan to replace the current one declared by the Planning Inspectorate as not fit for purpose.  Being not fit for purpose means that developers can build pretty much where they like.  Well, the delays in producing the first GESP draft don’t exhibit much of a sense of urgency.  Given that the main content of the GESP has already been decided, why don’t we just skip all the expensive and time-consuming process of producing a formal, approved strategic joint plan?  Just tell the district councils what they’ve already secretly decided between themselves and they can then amend their local plans to conform.  As things stand, we’ll have developers running riot in Exeter until 2022 at the earliest.

No, that’s not very democratic is it?  Not in the spirit of engaging communities in deciding their own futures.  But until the attitudes exhibited by The Planner and his bosses are set aside, democracy and engagement don’t look having any place in our planning system.  Has no one learned the lesson of the Brexit referendum – which is what happens when people feel locked out?

NOTES

[1]  See for example my post https://petercleasby.com/2015/03/02/the-trouble-with-this-election-is-that-the-voters-might-think-for-themselves/

[2]  See my posts at https://agreeninexeter.com/2016/11/14/wider-still-and-wider/ and https://agreeninexeter.com/2017/03/27/how-dense-can-we-be/

[3]  See my posts at https://agreeninexeter.com/2016/08/05/whose-vision-is-it-anyway-part-1/ and https://agreeninexeter.com/2016/08/05/whose-vision-is-it-anyway-part-2/