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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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3rd May '09
One of the presentations to the Bideford Manor Court this year was about the state of littering in the town. In an effort to get to grips with this old chestnut councillor Clive Bone gave his fellow town councillors a presentation on the criteria used by Torridge to measure cleanliness. It was fairly technical (Clive has a career background in the subject) – so much so that at the end of his 10 minute talk the Mayor asked ‘What are you actually telling us councillor Bone?’ Not a whit abashed he suggested we might take out a Litter Abatement Order against Torridge if we found they were not meeting the criteria specified in the ‘Litter Code’. Councillor David Fulford reckoned that the equipment used by Torridge was inadequate given the number of parked cars although he was also concerned that not enough supervision was in place. This point was taken up by councillor Brian Lacey who thought the £88,000 the mechanical road sweeper had cost was ‘a lot of money to clean the middle of the road’. On a more positive note he did add that East-the-Water school was introducing classes in ‘Litter Awareness’ – and made a plea for more litter bins. Councillor Andy Powell suggested getting figures on Torridge’s current litter collection under the Freedom of Information Act and/or setting up a town council team to monitor Torridge’s work. On a more practical level councillor Emma Farrington wanted us to copy other North Devon towns and have a Bideford ‘Clean Up Week’ where everyone collects street litter, puts it into skips which are then weighed with the results being presented to Torridge. All this could, I suppose, see the council re-visiting my idea of hiring our own street cleaner armed with a brush and dustbin on wheels to supplement the district council men.
Well the first election leaflets for the June 4th county council elections have come through my door – 3 in one go from the Conservatives. Apart from the rather profligate use of paper (I hesitate to say waste) I am intrigued that there is absolutely no mention anywhere of the main issue in the election viz. will the county council still be in existence in a year’s time? If the government and the county get their way both the county and district councils will disappear making way for a ‘Unitary’ council – which seems to be suspiciously like a far-less democratic county council. How those seeking election can ignore this is beyond me – you might like to ask the candidates if they turn up on your door.
Speaking of the ‘Unitary’ question I have been given a leaflet put out by the county which prints the estimated costs of the proposed changes. Apparently it will cost £74.3 million – though ‘expected savings’ will be £96.8 million. Excuse me if I say ‘Oh yeah?’ – not good English but it does convey my cynicism over these ‘guesstimate’ figures. Given that Britain appears to be rather short of money I do wonder where the £74 million is to come from. Indeed I suspect that a simple lack of money, not to speak of an almost total lack of popular support, will see the proposals quietly shunted off into local government limbo. We will, as they say, wait and see. (Incidentally does anyone know how much the county is spending on all the glitzy full colour propaganda advertisements they are putting out to support this move?)
Bideford Town Council own and run the Ford House Woodland and after some initial problems all seems well with this beautiful area – even if councillor Andy Powell is investigating one adjoining resident who has taken down their garden fence in order to give their dog free access into the woods. We are now working with the Devon Coast and Countryside Commission to have the woodland designated as a Local Nature Reserve which will both strengthen its protection and allow us to apply for funds currently not accessible. At the same meeting when we discussed this we also heard that a local lady, Louisa Silva, is trying to set up a ‘forest school’ in the woodland. She has worked with various local schools already at other sites with help from the Bridge Trust and the A.O.N.B. managers. If you haven’t heard of these ‘schools’ before they are an intriguing idea where urban based young children are shown what woods are all about - and get to safely light a campfire, erect rope and tarpaulin shelters and identify animals and plants. All the stuff my older readers probably did as a matter of course when we were kids but which apparently have now become rare occurrences.
I would add that it is nearly a decade since I had the Kenwith Lakes similarly designated as a Local Nature Reserve. The Kenwith has had a slightly unfortunate history of late but there will be some excellent news about it coming out in the next few weeks. Bideford is actually very lucky to have two such areas within the town – with a third coming when the area at the bottom of Manteo Way, East-the-Water, is also developed as a nature reserve in the next year or so.
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