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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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8th June '08
Some 6 months ago I was intrigued to read (and write) about a proposed new amphibious ferry which was to run between Bideford, Appledore, Instow and Barnstaple. News has now reached me that a company has been formed under the umbrella of the Tarka Country Trust to forward the ideas behind the ‘North Devon Ferry Project’. Funding is still being sought and the company hope to have their ferry in operation sometime in 2009. If I hear any more I will let you know.
At the Annual Parish Meeting at Pollyfield the Chief Executive of Torridge John van der Laarschot gave a talk on how Bideford town council and the district council were working together. At one point he asked the question ‘What on earth is going on with all the development sites in Bideford?’ – and answered himself by saying that such sites will only be developed by the private sector not the council and as such we had to ensure they were ‘commercially viable’. Over the last 18 months Torridge had been working to bring them to this point whilst the next stage will be marketing them with the council’s concepts and ideas of how they need to be developed well to the fore. Given the rather dramatic reversals in property prices of late selling the sites may be difficult, and Torridge may well be disbanded before it is able to sell the assets. Bideford town council of course would like these assets for itself – but as I have pointed out before they are not the exclusive property of Bideford ratepayers and, for example, Torridge residents in Hartland might take a dim view of assets they currently part own being passed over to Bideford.
Now that Torridge has passed all of its council housing and many of its housing staff over to Tarka Homes the council has been left with an underused building in Allhalland Street. Officers have suggested moving the remaining staff to Riverbank House, moving the main committee meetings to the Town Hall and selling the property, probably for redevelopment into flats. This would allow more members of the public to attend meetings – though I have to say that our committee discussions, other than Planning, rarely attract large audiences! Councillors have asked for a report on the implications of this sale and move though the current impasse between the Environment Agency and the council over new development on flood plains might well put an insuperable barrier on any new development. The building itself was once the Castle Inn and was famous as the birthplace of Alfred Denbow around 1840 who was known as the ‘Youthful Mental Calculator’. Aged 10 he was taken to London and before 70 of ‘the principal Engineers, Surveyors and Builders’ of Britain he calmly answered the most difficult calculating questions they could throw at him – a true calculating genius. I reproduce an engraving of Alfred published in the Bideford Gazette and Monthly Advertiser of March 1854 – which is quite a rare publication as it only lasted four issues!
You may have noticed the new Civil Parking Enforcement Officers around town. These are the new style Traffic Wardens being operated by Torridge and Devon county council rather than, as formerly, the police. There has been a hiccup over the legality or not of them issuing tickets which is being hurriedly sorted out but following a constituent’s query I have raised the issue of Residents’ Parking in Bideford and how this is to be managed in future. When residents in some roads opted for such parking we were told that the money generated by charging licence fees, along with that from the on-street parking ticket machine, was used to provide a warden to ‘police’ the new set up. Indeed without this targeted warden the scheme would be impossible to run. When I asked if this was still the case no-one seemed to know. The only definite thing I was told was that Residents’ Parking was to be continued and was still being actively ‘policed’. I am aware that householders in roads that do not yet have restricted parking rights would like to see these brought in – presumably it will be easier now that the money being raised by such schemes is being kept here within Torridge – or perhaps it isn’t that simple?
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