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Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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15th October '06
I am the Historic Environment Champion for Torridge District Council – which means that I am there to represent the claims of ‘heritage’ in anything the council does. Last week we held a joint meeting with North Devon District Council at Riverbank House where councillors, officers and members of English Heritage got together to discuss our ‘understanding of the historic environment’. Certainly some of the insights of English Heritage were fascinating. They wished, for example, that both councils would ensure developers built houses that had links to local vernacular architecture. To this end they showed us some slides of unremarkable modern estate houses reckoning they were ‘Designed for nowhere but found everywhere.’ Such houses were ‘perfectly good buildings’ - but how attractive were they?- the clear implication being – not very. Apparently if developers keep coming up with bog-standard off-the-shelf designs then council planning committees are well within their rights to send them back with a request they employ a better designer/architect. Indeed I’m happy to say that the Bideford town council planning committee did exactly that with an application on the very evening of the meeting – with a bit of prompting from me.
The meeting continued in the same vein with one of the experts attacking developers who come up with schemes where various building styles were stuck together to form a sort of Frankenstein whole. People who did this were ‘dyslexic as to architectural language’ – a phrase I must remember to use when the next set of box like houses with add-on Georgian details comes before us.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of the day was when the English Heritage panel was asked why they had, apparently, supported the County Council’s design for Bideford’s old bridge where stainless steel walkways were to be strapped on the outside of the structure? According to the EH people this was a case of ‘Chinese whispers’ where ‘their advice was misunderstood’ by officials down at County Hall – so I’m glad that’s settled then.
Another fascinating point touched on was the restructuring currently going on in the agricultural sector and how this was affecting farm buildings locally. The decline of holdings, amalgamation of farms and the increasing numbers of ‘lifestyle buyers’ was leading to great changes. In addition the growing popularity of home based workers (teleworkers) was becoming important – though both Torridge and North Devon councils have few real facts on the subject – a problem that might be remedied by asking parish councils to draw on their local knowledge to supply details.
It has to be said that the rest of the day was interesting and informative in equal parts - only 6 Torridge councillors out of 36 attended but those that did really learnt something.
Last week’s Environment and Leisure Committee meeting at Torridge saw Councillor Bond once again raise the issue of the proposed Tesco supermarket at Torrington. You will have seen the findings of the recent retail study of the town which came out against the planned site for, and size of, the new shop. As a consequence of these findings we were told that Tescos have withdrawn their planning application and are ‘examining different possibilities.’ A success, albeit I think temporary, for those concerned for the future of Torrington’s town centre – a victory that sits alongside Tesco’s defeat over the Marsh Farm site in Bideford.
It was left to Councillor Ford to raise the intriguing question of the Somerfield application. This proposal had been put on hold until Tesco got their application together so Torridge could look at the two side by side. Now Tescos have dropped out he asked if Somerfield could go for ‘non-determination’ – a legal complaint over Torridge’s delay in assessing their application – which can carry hefty financial penalties if an Inspector found in their favour. No answer was forthcoming but I suspect we will be hearing more of this. Just for the record Councillor Bond’s original motion to keep the Calf Street play area for recreation was passed.
The Burton Art Gallery and Museum was gifted to Bideford some 50 years ago and over the years its running costs have steadily risen – to the point now where Torridge are actively trying to sever the link between the council and the building. The preferred way of doing this is to set up a trust to run the gallery which could be part of a large umbrella organisation including the Queens Theatre and the Landmark along with Appledore and Barnstaple Museums. Work has been commissioned to see if this could be viable and the completion date is set for April 2007. When Torridge discussed this recently Councillor Hugh Bone asked what funding, other than from the council, would be available to run these various operations – and was told that many charities, who only give to other charities, could prove a rich source. As an answer this was rather vague I thought! Councillor Rawlinson followed this up by asking where the Plough fitted in to this scenario and received the reply that it didn’t as it was ‘independently incorporated’. This obviously didn’t answer the question and left those of us who think the Plough has done a fantastic job in becoming virtually self-financing with severe doubts at to the workability of the whole scheme. Until future funding is put on a more secure basis and the Plough (plus the Beaford Centre) are taken into account then I for one will be reserving my position on this idea.
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