| 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
|
9th September '07
The Bideford Regeneration Initiative moves ahead albeit slowly under their newly appointed chairman Richard Lucey. The plan, as explained at a recent town council meeting by councillor Andy Powell, is to press ahead with preparing two sites for sale – Brunswick Wharf and the Cattle Market – with the budget to do this set at £234,000 over the next 18 months. Such a massive sum is apparently being budgeted for to cover the costs of preparing the sites as a ‘package’ with all the initial groundwork surveys etc done. This in turn will, theoretically, allow developers to give more back to the town in whatever form the BRI choose. Sadly councillors Steve Clarke and Phil Vanstone between them put the damper on these grandiose plans by pointing out that if a developer buys a site on the promise that everything has been sorted out yet later a problem crops up they will, quite rightly, demand a proportion of their money back. On this basis councillor Clarke was adamant that this route should not be followed. I raised the further problem that the sites actually belong to Torridge and thus to the whole district – and councillors from outside of Bideford may well have other plans for the proceeds of what are, after all, the two largest assets held by the district council. This is a point seemingly overlooked by the BRI and seems to represent a breakdown in communications between the BRI and TDC. Councillor David Fulford then cast his mind back over similar plans that never came to fruition quoting the Pottery Centre - and then asked what happened after 18 months – would even more money be required? Notwithstanding all this the town council actually voted to put forward their £30,000 share of the £234,000 budget so long as Torridge put forward their £100,000 – leaving quite a few members wondering how it could cost nearly £1/4 million to sell the two most saleable sites in Bideford? It will be interesting to see what Torridge councillors make of all this – a suitable case for their Overview and Scrutiny Committee perhaps?
At this week’s meeting of the town council Planning Committee amongst all the conservatories and extensions we had one application that will have massive impacts on the town if it goes ahead. The plan is to redevelop the whole corner plot between Torridge Hill and New Road, the old site of Wickham’s and Travis Perkin. Linked to it will be further development of the old industrial site to the north of Torridge Hill. The scheme envisages 107 units of accommodation, some commercial buildings, public open space and an art gallery. The site at present is of course looking very forlorn and as one of the main gateways to the town is badly in need of refurbishment so it is not surprising that we recommended acceptance with just one or two caveats. We were concerned that the road splay off of Torridge Hill would not be wide enough to take the increased levels of traffic – and we asked that the old plaster animals/shapes on Brunswick House plus the Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore railway rails in the garage be preserved. Torridge’s Planning Committee will make the final decision – and will almost certainly put on a condition that if passed the county archaeologist will keep a watchful eye on the development.
The plan by Bideford town council to investigate developing part of its allotments holding at Pollyfield has generated a fair bit of comment in the town – most of it negative from what I have heard. At our meeting last week we heard that no message had been received from the Secretary of State about whether we could actually sell the land or not – but we did hear from Bill Allen, Director of Community Projects in North Devon. He wrote to us several years ago about using the allotments under discussion for use by people with learning difficulties/addiction problems/mental health issues. We had agreed to this but hadn’t heard anything from them since their initial approach. We were thus rather surprised to hear that firstly, they were still interested, and secondly the ‘target group’ had changed to people having to carry out unpaid work as part of their ‘community payback services’ for the Probation Service. As I pointed out both usages would be serving a social need but the change of emphasis seemed rather surprising – not to mention the worrying length of silence between approaches. Brian Lacey an East-the-Water councillor then said that he would strongly oppose any selling off of the areas currently used for playing by children. Nothing is ever simple is it – no wonder we have the old cliché ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’!
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.