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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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5th April '09
Everyone is aware that energy prices have gone up considerably – and on Torridge we were told that our officers had budgeted for an extra expenditure of some £65,000 in 2009-10. I was shocked at this and suggested we introduce a target of a 3% decrease in energy use over the same period whilst councillor Phil Collins through the best way to achieve this was to allow our staff to give 50% of any savings to a local charity of their choice. When it came to the vote my motion was passed by 8 votes to 1. Unfortunately for councillor Collins his idea was defeated 4 to 3 with 1 abstention. This was on the argument that any savings in public expenditure should help the council tax payers rather than charities - however deserving they might be – an argument put forward by our leader councillor James Morrish. The next thing we are looking at is our carbon footprint – though how this will look when and if we start incinerating waste is anyone’s guess. Incidentally you will have seen that a large incinerator at St.Dennis in Cornwall, just like the one Devon county council are preparing to set up in Barnstaple to take both Torridge and North Devon waste, has been rejected by a vote of 20 to 1 by Cornwall county council on a variety of planning grounds. With the whole Seven Brethren scheme in Barnstaple, of which the incinerator is part, seemingly unravelling fast is anyone willing to take bets on the incinerator ever being built? This leaves the question, of course, of what is to happen to Bideford’s waste.
Councillors have been informed that the steel river wall inserted in front of the new estate between Riverbank House and the Torridge Bridge is having to be treated as it is suffering from higher than normal rates of erosion. The work is being carried out by the Environment Agency using specialist marine paint which will have to be applied to areas of the steel piling below the current mud level. The project will cost some £250,000 and work will take 3 months. This particular wall has some ‘history’ in that its construction in the first place apparently bankrupted the development company who then owned the site. Indeed the houses were only built when another company took over the site. One has to wonder how common this type of treatment will become - not just for steel pilings but also for stone and brick walls. It certainly shows why the new rules on limiting building on flood plains next to rivers are so strict – after all the public purse cannot be drawn on indefinitely to patch up such flood defences.
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