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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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10th May '09
If Torridge sell an ‘asset’ should the receipts be spent in the parish containing that asset or not was the question faced by councillors at the last meeting of the Policy, Performance and Resources Committee. It came up as a result of Torrington councillor Geoff Lee who wanted 25% from the sale of New Street car park to be spent for the benefit of the people of Torrington. Unfortunately for councillor Lee he hadn’t lined up his allies and no-one seconded his motion so it wasn’t discussed. The Chief Executive did point out, however, that some areas of Torridge were ‘asset rich’ whilst others were ‘asset poor’ - yet all areas had paid towards the purchase and maintenance of these assets. This is of some importance to Bideford as we have 5 of the major development sites in the district within the town – Brunswick Wharf, the Pill, the Cattle Market, the Sports Ground and Bridge Street car park. The first four of these, as I have noted before, are now blighted by PPS25 - the ruling by the Environment Agency that sites on flood plains are now virtually undevelopable. Of course if the last council 3 years ago had actively sought to sell these assets Torridge taxpayers would be a lot better off – though I wonder what percentage of the profits would have been spent in Bideford – certainly it might have helped supply a swimming pool which Torrington has and we don’t!
The debate over building an incinerator to burn the area’s rubbish trundles on. The plant will, I understand, be franchised out based on binding contracts by Torridge and North Devon councils to supply enough waste to keep it going. At a meeting a fortnight ago I did ask whether if the waste stream falls then will material capable of being recycled be diverted to the incinerator to fulfil the contract? Unfortunately no council officers could give me an answer on this. I should note that the amount of waste collected in Bideford and in the district generally rose last year. In 2007-8 some 418 kg per head was collected – which rose last year to 445 kg! Over the same period the percentage of household waste recycled actually fell from 19% to 18.8% with some 4842 tonnes being composted. The June county council elections may well see political changes at Exeter so it will be interesting to see the stance of the new administration on this issue – although Tory-led North Devon has already come out strongly in favour of the incinerator.
The district council was discussing its finances recently which, given the current economic situation, aren’t that bad. A few existing budgets are way off target amongst them car parking and Bideford harbour. The former is put down to poor weather and the latter to a fall in demand for local clay – although we do seem to have a few more boats in lately. In respect of the harbour councillor Steve Clarke reckoned we were still ‘paying huge wages for very little work at the moment’ and suggested we would have to look at measures like 3 day weeks adding that this sort of expenditure wouldn’t be allowed to continue in private business. The problem with the harbour, of course, is that ship arrivals do not follow a regular pattern and so we have to maintain facilities for when they are needed. Personally I value the presence of a working port in the town. Several years ago there were moves to try and close the port and turn the quay into a museum area – even though such a move had failed disastrously in Exeter and even Bristol has had major problems with the s.s.Great Britain. As the road system falls apart working ports will, I feel sure, come into their own again. Bideford has a long and proud history as a port – and long may it continue.
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