North Devon Green Party

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10th February '08

The recent pair of district council meetings where the sale of New Street car park in Torrington was discussed have been nothing if not interesting. At the first the Policy, Performance and Resource committee listened to the various arguments, most of which were based around the economic aspects of the proposed sale of them, deftly ‘passed the buck’ and sent it on to the Planning Committee to sort out. The economic facts are actually very simple – the council make around £65000 - £8500 profit per annum on the car park but as Bob Hicks the committee chairman noted its value is ‘well in excess of £500,000’ – so clearly this is not a very good return on capital. The second meeting, of the Full Council, was reported at length in last week’s Journal being a very long and rather bad tempered affair. Councillor Geoff Lee wanted the decision re-examined citing the perception that the last council under Pat Ferguson and Steve Clarke was very poor at listening to the public - but now we had a chance to redeem ourselves and as a matter of principle needed to fully consult with the voters before taking far reaching decisions. Councillor Len Ford, with his usual gift for the telling phrase wondered if this ‘wasn’t a case of putting on a condom after your partner has become pregnant?’ – I think we all understood his meaning. Councillor Hicks then made his infamous comment about ‘The peasants are revolting’ which, rightly or wrongly, the strong contingent of Torrington residents present took to mean themselves – and they weren’t very pleased at the analogy. Our Leader James Morrish reckoned he had become ‘Public Enemy No.1’ over recent weeks admitting ‘I think I may have made a mistake in how I voted over this issue’ adding ‘If you want to shoot someone then I’m a big enough target’. Councillor David Lausen suggested the money paid by Lidl for the car park could be spent on ‘the green shoots of regrowth’ in Torrington – though I had to point out that this will be Torridge money which can be spent anywhere in the district as a whole and is not ring-fenced for Torrington. I did suggest TDC consider giving £100,000 of the purchase price to the Plough perhaps or start a fund to replace Torrington swimming pool but nobody followed this up. Councillor Chris Leather went on to query whether Torrington town council had actually discussed this and was told that it had – albeit with a rather depleted number of councillors present. He went on to suggest ‘consultation’ at this stage was ‘pandering to the gallery’ – a suggestion met by calls from the audience of ‘The peasants are revolting again.’ I joined in again to wonder why this car park was being sold when both Brunswick Wharf and the Cattle Market in Bideford seem the obvious candidates seeing as they are longstanding eyesores and indeed actually dangerous. Councillor Hicks did admit that the income from the Wharf site was ‘Zero’ although he didn’t follow up the possibly embarrassing question from several councillors as to why the area hadn’t been sold several years ago? The net result of all this was a decision to undertake some sort of consultation with someone or other at a meeting possibly to be held in the Plough – not perhaps the most decisive of outcomes but that’s local government for you.
As a postscript I suspect that when the Brunswick Wharf site is sold for development the disappearance of the East-the-Water car park (which has only ever been a ‘temporary’ facility) will make the furore over the New Street car park pale into insignificance. I should add how much I enjoyed the posters carried by protestors with their clever word plays; ‘New Street – Chaos Complete’, ‘Parking Mad’, ‘TDC – Torrington Deserves Consultation’ and ‘Lidl did we know’.

I’ve just been given the ‘Bideford CCTV Indication Performance Levels’ for April to December 2007 and fascinating reading they make. Some 165 incidents or roughly 18 per month are recorded in which the CCTV cameras were used by the police which would seem to prove their usefulness to those who have queried how effective they are. Of the 165 incidents a surprisingly high number of 31 concerned people ‘Wanted on warrant’ who were presumably spotted on camera and then picked up. Various fights were observed and broken up, various shoplifters were targeted whilst other offences noted varied from ‘Unconscious female’, ‘Drinking in alcohol free zone’ and even ‘Urinating in public’. People often express concern about the number of people in Bideford on evenings during the weekend so, for my own interest, I analysed the incidents by day from August to November. Unsurprisingly Friday came out top with 14 events – but was matched by Sunday! Wednesday came second with 13 and Tuesday and Saturday equal third with 11 incidents each. I suspect the noticeably heavier police presence on Friday and Saturday nights keeps the figures down although why Sunday is so high is anyone’s guess – perhaps as the streets are relatively empty it is easier for the CCTV operators to spot miscreants? Unfortunately there is still no news on the infantile numbskulls who damaged the ‘ragged newsboy’ statue even though the Journal published the footage from the CCTV camera covering the relevant area.

I don’t often mention Parliament as it doesn’t seem to directly impinge on our lives here in Bideford very often. A few weeks ago, however, our MPs passed the Sustainable Communities Bill which at first sight may sound a ‘hippyish’ sort of Act but in truth it is an extremely important piece of law. Simply put, by October this year the government must ask every council to submit suggestions of ways that it can help you and the council make your community more sustainable. Torridge will have to ask your opinion as to these suggestions through a series of citizens’ panels drawn from all sections of the community – not just the ‘usual suspects’. The government then has a legal duty to co-operate with Torridge to agree what action it will take on the suggestions i.e. a bottom-up approach to major decision making rather than government led decisions being imposed from above. Clearly this will only work if the panels truly encompass every group in the town and district. I’m not sure how this will be done yet but all too often the same names have continued to crop up on previous groups and it will be a challenge to see if Torridge can attract more interest than other ‘consultations’ it has attempted.

The Bradworthy Wind Turbines

Councillor Christie's Weblog

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10th February '08