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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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7th Sept '08
A couple of years ago the Journal launched a campaign titled ‘Use it or lose it’ which was designed to encourage local people to buy from local shops and thus keep our town centres healthy and attractive. Since then, of course, Bideford has seen Safeways become a revamped Morrisons, Asda has moved in and Tesco is now applying to build at East-the-Water so the message probably needs to be heeded more than ever. A new leaflet is doing the rounds in Bideford titled ‘Making the most of local money’ which presents an interesting angle on this idea. The cover carries the amazing statistic that ‘If every household in Devon spent an extra 4% of their income with South West based businesses the extra money in the local economy would be the equivalent to all of the European grants made to the entire South Region in 2001-2007 - £640 million.’ The other three pages of the leaflet carry some very pragmatic guidance to local retailers on how to increase their income – most of which will stay in the local area and have knock-on benefits to all local people unlike the supermarkets whose profits disappear off to goodness knows where. Further details are available at www.nearbuy.org.uk
I have referred to the publication Torridge Matters before I know but it is such a useful thing that I make no apology for returning to it again. Published by Torridge Voluntary Services from their office at 14 Bridgeland Street the latest edition has its usual mix of articles plus a guide to sources of funding for charities and community groups. I am always surprised to read about what is out there – for example grants of up to £30,000 are available to groups wishing to implement sustainable energy projects in their buildings whilst the Media Trust will help groups produce a professional quality promotional film about their particular work suitable for public showing or streaming on the internet. One particularly useful scheme to my mind was the MSE Charity which provides up to £500 to individuals to pay for courses ‘to improve their ability to budget and manage their finances.’ I know that the Bideford Citizens Advice Bureau has a very heavy case load of problems associated with personal debt and clearly schemes like this which stop the problem before it starts seem an excellent investment. Amongst the articles two caught my attention – a really useful one entitled ‘Organising a Fair or Fete’ and another about Shaunaugh Cobb, the Migrant Workers Officer for North and East Devon, who is researching the top ten languages spoken in Devon. Assuming that local dialects don’t count I would guess English, Polish, Chinese plus various other European languages but it will be fascinating to see the results. Whoever would have thought that insular old North Devon could now be boasting at least 10 other languages in this the first decade of the 21st century?
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