| Join the Green Party and you'll receive our local quarterly newsletter, as well as invitations to Green Events. You'll be invited to attend meetings, join our discussion list, vote on issues, and contribute to our campaigns and policies for North Devon. |
The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
Previous entries
|
3rd Aug '08
When I was last Mayor several years ago I pushed hard to get an offshoot from the new North Devon College in Barnstaple set up here in Bideford – with Brunswick Wharf being the favoured location. Talks, however, foundered for various reasons so I was excited when, at a recent council meeting, I heard about a new scheme for North Devon College to establish a facility with the mouth filling title (currently) of ‘A Centre for Aspiration in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry’. The aim would be to build a centre which ‘will have a high quality innovative river facing restaurant which will use local produce.’ This would provide both a huge draw for the town and a high quality training facility. In addition training would be offered in hotel skills, beauty and holistic therapy and tourism for both young people and adults up to degree standard. With new skills businesses could improve and hopefully wage levels will increase – something I and others have been harping on about for many years now. What great news – but it will all depend on Torridge coming to a satisfactory agreement over the Brunswick Wharf site. Given that previous schemes have all been ‘speculative’ this one sounds extremely promising – and is backed by real money made available as part of the overall North Devon College development plan. I will be pushing all out for this scheme which would make a magnificent legacy for the apparently soon-to-disappear district council – and even if the wins a last minute reprieve it should still push ahead with this project.
I understand the costs incurred by North Devon District Council in their doomed fight against the Fullabrook wind turbines have reached around £120,000 – at a time when it is clear renewables are needed more than ever. I mention this as I have just been reading about a company called Alvesta Energy of Mullacott near Ilfracombe who are looking for a 10 acre site in North Devon to erect some vertical axis wind turbines. These are the ones that look a lot like telephone masts being around 15-18m high with 6 vertical ‘slats’ spinning around a central pivot – and as such I assume they would attract as many complaints as telephone masts i.e. not very many. Apparently they come in different sizes with the smallest 3 kw machine mounted on a 6m lattice tower costing £10,000 – which have been popular with orders coming from caravan parks and golf clubs. Personally I would love to see them all around Atlantic Village, Caddsdown and the Alverdiscott Road industrial estate – and who knows, I may live long enough to see Bideford powered by micro generators such as these.
The recent petrol ‘shortages’ that led to massive traffic chaos in Bideford as motorists queued to buy up supplies surfaced at the recent town council meeting. County councillor Humphrey Temperley was questioned whether the County roads department had any plans for handling similar problems in the future. He began by saying he had contacted Morrisons, where the worst problem was generated, on the day in question but had received a ‘less than helpful response’. Luckily the staff at the supermarket eventually moved the queue from the Kingsley Road into their own car park. As to planning for the future there is apparently no scheme in place with some local garages saying they would ration petrol and diesel whilst others would just keep selling their supplies on a first-come, first-served basis until they ran out. Clearly in these times when fuel ‘crises’ seem to materialise out of nowhere it would seem sensible to prepare some sort of coherent policy across the district. The world we are told will reach ‘peak oil output’ in 2 years – after that reserves will begin to dwindle and prices rise even more so clearly we need to plan for this as much as for short-term problems.
Website designed by Jon Hooper
Published and promoted by Jon Hooper, 3 Elizabeth Court, Well Street, Torrington EX38 8EP on behalf of the North Devon Green Party, 1 Taw View Terrace, Bishops Tawton, EX32 0AW
PLEASE NOTE: Not all of the material presented on this site is necessarily Green Party Policy or endorsed by The Green Party.