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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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12th April '09
The last meeting of the full Torridge district council saw 22 members of the council’s waste/cleansing staff publicly congratulated by the chair, councillor Margaret Brown for successfully completing NVQs in their chosen fields at North Devon College. The fact that all 22 who entered passed is certainly something to celebrate. At the meeting we clapped each of the staff members – who then had to pose for some photographs with the chair and their manager. I mention this as it is something to be proud of but it does sit rather oddly with one of the submissions to this year’s Manor Court which reads, ‘That Bideford Town Council liaise with Torridge District Council to review the effectiveness of street cleansing and consider greater use of powers to penalise people who drop litter in Bideford.’ Perhaps my plan to employ another street cleaner in Bideford which was, somewhat bizarrely, turned down by a council sub-committee after being supported by the full council should now be re-visited?
At last week’s meeting of the Bideford Town Council planning committee we were presented with an application we had already turned down some time ago. This was a plan to demolish the Stallone’s Nightclub on the corner of Gunstone and New Street and replace it with 11 flats. We were unhappy with the overlooking that will result to the flats opposite and also weren’t too impressed that in this conservation zone the only approach seemed to be complete demolition and replacement – but the final decision will be left to Torridge’s plans committee. The present building has been many thins – indeed in recent years it had been various clubs, the Labour Party HQ and a printer’s though originally it was constructed as a cinema – the Bijou - probably around the First World War.
Whilst on the subject of planning we also had an application from Morrison’s for a 2 storey extension to their store on the side facing you as you drive in. We had no qualms about this but were worried about an ancillary scheme tacked on to this application that would see the traffic island opposite the Esso garage disappear in order to have 2 lanes of waiting cars at the traffic lights. Currently there are hold-ups when the lane into Morrison’s gets full and cars jut out into the Kingsley Road lane. This plan would presumably solve this – but at what cost to the pedestrian? Hundreds of people use the island to cross this busy road every day and to allow this to disappear seemed wrong to us so we opposed this part of the plan. It will be interesting to see what Devon county’s road engineers have to say about this.
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