Mid Devon residents have a right to have a properly competent council in charge of local services rather than the one they have, says parliamentary candidate Ian Liddell-Grainger.
He said he was ‘totally unsurprised’ to read of confidence in the council plummeting given the comments he was receiving while canvassing in the area.
A new survey has found fewer residents are content with the way Mid Devon District Council runs its services and the value for money it provides.
Just over 41 per cent of respondents were very or fairly satisfied with the way the council ran its services in 2023 - down from 49 per cent in 2022.
But slightly more than 31 per cent said they were fairly or very dissatisfied with the council compared with 25 per cent in 2022, while the number who felt the council provided value for money dropped from 46 per cent in 2022 to 36 per cent in 2023.
Mr Liddell-Grainger, who intends to stand for the new Tiverton and Minehead constituency as a Conservative, said he was hardly surprised to read the results.
“They echo precisely the feedback I have been getting on the doorstep - that the council is steady going from bad to worse,” he said.
“Local people can hardly be blamed for feeling the way they do having watched the council blunder into a disastrous, now-failed housing development project which has left it with a £21 million debt pile.
“Then there has been the fiasco over development control where the council has for some reason been unable to recruit or retain enforcement officers - which clearly has been music to the ears of dodgy builders and developers.
“I am now informed that ‘potentially’ the council will have three such officers in post in the near future. But until they are actually there I regard that in the same light as the council announcing that ‘potentially’ a money tree will be found growing and fruiting outside its offices next week.
“The only decent thing the council has managed to do is publish the results of the survey. So at least I can congratulate it on its openness - if not its competence.
“But clearly more and more people feel they are being failed by the council - and they deserve far better in return for the vast sums they are shelling out in council tax.”
