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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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14th January '07
The on-going concerns about youths wandering the streets of East-the-Water is to be tackled in an unusual way with the provision of a ‘Youth Shelter’. Specifically designed to allow young people to congregate inside it will be lit by solar power and sited at the end of the Pollyfield car park following a partnership approach between the Pollyfield Centre, the police and local councils – mainly driven by the input of one of the new and very keen Police Community Support Officers. In order to make it more attractive it was proposed to put a radio in it but Torridge baulked at the cost – so I was glad when the town council followed my suggestion that it could provide the money. Let’s hope that the shelter works and that the young people of East-the-Water see it as a genuine alternative to the streets.
The plans for the new Bideford College were unveiled two weeks ago by the team behind them and I was invited along as both a councillor and a member of the Bridge Trust. The whole thing was very impressive and I can only agree with the speakers that the development should act as a catalyst for regeneration not just for Bideford but for this whole part of Torridge. It was fascinating to hear the head teacher (and my ex-pupil) Veronica Matthews explaining how she had worked with the architect to get a building full of the ‘wow-factor’ – and one where she could show people around without ‘cringing at design errors’ – and how she thinks they have succeeded. Even more exciting from my personal point of view was the total commitment to ensuring the development would be as ‘green’ and sustainable as it could be with the provision of a ‘green roof’, the collection and re-use of rainwater, the installation of a wood chip boiler using locally sourced fuel and even small on-site wind turbines. Further renewable energy is to come from an off-site large turbine but where is to be sited has yet to be decided – though I would favour Caddsdown. Even the insulation of the new school is to be made of material produced from old newspapers – so keep filling those green bags and the paper banks!
There were a few oddities – even Veronica queried the architect who after describing his ideas of a ‘Central Winter Garden’ area blithely went on to talk about the same areas in terms of a ‘Mediterranean village’ concept. Climate control in these areas should be interesting. The timetable for the construction period sees the planning application submitted in March of this year with the first on-site work beginning in June. Opening is scheduled for August 2009 with the new sports facilities being put in place by July 2010. This is great news for Bideford and I look forward to seeing the new building rise up on the site.
Latest figures on tourist numbers show that the North Devon/Torridge area accounts for 26% of all visitors to the county thus making us more popular than Torbay. The industry brought £300 million in to our local economy in 2005 alone. All good news but surely it is time to consider the future of our beaches. With global warming and a mix of thermal expansion of sea water and the melting of the ice caps our glorious beaches are under serious threat – and any negative impacts on them would certainly hit the tourist industry. Of course we could try ‘selling’ our holidays as ‘green’ in that British people would not need to fly to get here – and by coming here they would save on their CO2 emissions and thus help protect our beaches. But this would, of course, only be a temporary thing. We really do need to start planning for a very different scenario to the one we enjoy now. Last year Torridge cut its coastal flood defence budget – and with discussions now going on to fix the budget for the next year it will be interesting to see how much importance is attached to this problem.
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