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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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2nd Aug '09
A recent meeting of the Finance committee of the town council saw councillors voicing concerns over the present rather shabby state of the Town Hall. Given the prominence of this building and its importance as the historic centre of Bideford we were upset that Torridge has allowed it to get into the state it has. Councillor Steve Clarke moved that we obtain three quotes for basic repair and decoration, both internally and externally, before we approach the district council to see what they are going to do to remedy the situation. Given that in the event of a ‘Unitary’ council being set up the town council may well wish to take back the Town Hall this situation obviously needs addressing.
Cooper Street is a wonderfully characterful street which seems to be turning into Bideford’s eating and drinking centre. Last week, some of the owners of the street’s outlets got together to discuss ideas about upgrading the appearance of the area and making it the ‘gateway’ to Bideford. John Emms, the owner of Lathwells Restaurant, spoke of his hope to have visitors enter Jubilee Square from the Quay and come up Cooper Street before entering the town proper. As he said visitors who saw the High Street first with its many nationally owned shops wouldn’t realise that Bideford has a wealth of small, local, idiosyncratic shops. He was echoed by Rob Braddick who pointed out that he was the fifth generation of his family to operate a business in Cooper Street – following the opening of his family’s butcher shop where Subway now stands. Rob wondered whether it would be possible to erect a ship’s mast in Jubilee Square with hanging baskets, new lighting and even a ‘flea market’ in Cooper Street itself. Personally I have often toyed with the idea of putting a glass roof over Cooper and Mill Streets and turning the town into an all-weather ‘shopping experience’ – and some ago I did suggest moving Kingsley’s statue to Jubilee Square. Incidentally John Emms, who is a consultant for the Waitrose supermarket chain, spoke of his ambition to create a Bideford-branded food rather like Melton Mowbray pork pies or Aberdeen smokies. At the meeting he served some incredibly tasty samphire gathered here in Bideford. Can any reader think of any Bideford-based foods that might fulfil this role?
You may remember me mentioning moves by councillor Geoff Lee to ensure that the sale of any of Torridge’s assets would see a percentage of the money going back to the community which housed that asset. He finally got this discussed at a meeting of the council’s Policy Committee and the debate was interesting. Mr.Lee comes from Torrington and wants part of the money from the sale of New Street car park to Lidl’s to be spent on, for example, resurfacing the South Street car park in his town. Councillor James Morrish saw merit in this in that the money wouldn’t actually leave Torridge – unfortunately the council’s Treasurer Jenny Wallace pointed out that our very tight budget this year was based on 100% of all sale receipts coming to Torridge and further, that these assets had been maintained by all of Torridge’s taxpayers and so it seemed rather unfair to favour one area over another. This is, of course, a powerful argument against for those areas such as Buckland Brewer that have no Torridge owned assets in them at all – under councillor Lee’s scheme they would
never get this enhanced ‘bite’ of the cherry. Here in Bideford which has 5 of Torridge’s main assets we would do very well as councillor Tony Inch pointed out. In addition I noted that ‘ring fencing’ cash to individual towns or villages could re-open old grievances e.g. the fact that Torrington has a swimming pool and Bideford doesn’t, the loss of Bideford’s multi-use games area to Torrington and the refurbishment of Torrington’s Pannier Market by Torridge – when Bideford town council paid for overhauling the Market on its own. In the end we leaned towards the idea of a ‘pot’ of money from asset sales being set up that all communities could ‘bid’ for in order to develop special projects. The idea will now be looked at by another of the council’s committees – nothing is ever fast in local government.
Given the financial crisis we are still going through it was fascinating to hear how Torridge district council is doing everything it can to minimise exposure to dodgy banks. At our recent Policy committee meeting it was good to hear that we have actually done very well so far. I did ask how many bankers have been arrested so far – none in Britain – and councillor Bob Hicks admitted if it had been left to him he probably would have invested tax payers’ money in those Icelandic banks – before hastily adding of course that he hadn’t done this with his own money! In terms of the council’s own policies on rates income one interesting point arose. Currently charity shops, of which Bideford has a few, are allowed 80% relief on their total rates bill while the other 20% is discretionary to the council. Many of the ‘national’ charity shops, however, ‘sell new goods which are in direct competition to local businesses’ and therefore we decided no extra relief would be given. I know some staff are paid and such shops have overheads like any other businesses but their advantages (cheap or free labour, donated stock etc) does make it difficult for ordinary retailers to compete. Don’t get me wrong – the charities do a great job but achieving a level playing field for all shops really must be one of the council’s guiding principle.
Bideford is to receive a visit from the ‘Parish Lengthsman’. This strange sounding officer refers to those people who keep the minor aspects of our roads in order e.g. cutting hedges back, tackling small repairs etc. Town councillors have been asked to identify things they wish done and I suggested the drain gratings, which seem to be permanently blocked, are cleared. Recent rainstorms have shown how badly this needs to be done with ‘rivers’ rushing down some steep roads where the drains are jammed up with soil and rubbish.
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