| Join the Green Party and you'll receive our local quarterly newsletter, as well as invitations to Green Events. You'll be invited to attend meetings, join our discussion list, vote on issues, and contribute to our campaigns and policies for North Devon. |
The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
Previous entries
|
16th March '08
You may have read about two recent proposals by Bideford town councillors
to tackle the bugbears of modern life – litter, graffiti and dog
fouling. I have suggested the town council hire a street cleaner who,
armed with a brush and a dustbin on wheels, will supplement the existing
Torridge street cleaning machine particularly in outlying streets and
those clogged with parked cars. The other suggestion was from councillor
Caroline Church who wants a uniformed enforcement officer to hand out
on-the-spot fines to graffiti artists, dog owners etc.
The council’s Finance Committee recently looked at these suggestions with
valuable input coming from Ricky McCormack who is Torridge’s waste supremo.
Members asked a variety of questions and got some interesting answers. David
Fulford asked why weren’t weeds being tackled in town and was told that
Devon County council did this but the weedkiller they were using was now so weak
that it had little effect – and indeed Torridge had been supplementing
treatments in some particularly bad areas even though it wasn’t actually
their responsibility. Several councillors asked about the timetable for cleaning
Bideford’s streets and were told that some areas, notably the Quay, were
swept three times a day whilst the area from Morrisons to Alexandra Terrace for
example was visited once a day. This compared with some rural areas of Torridge
which only got a visit once every 6 months! Mr.McCormack did point out that even
though Bideford had grown enormously over the last 10 years he still has the
same number of staff as a decade ago – so any extra cleaning manpower the
town council could provide would be very welcome – though I did get a guarantee
that if we provided another worker Torridge wouldn’t deploy one of Bideford’s
existing workers anywhere else. As to the proposed uniformed officer we heard
that two such positions have recently been added to Torridge’s workforce
and they have been provided with some very sophisticated surveillance equipment
to help catch persistent offenders. After listening to all of these points plus
many others councillor Tony Inch proposed going ahead with both suggestions dependant
on a report coming back to the full council as to costs for a range of options.
Apropos of the above councillor David Fulford did ask for more frequent emptying of the dog waste bins. Mr.McCormack responded by pointing out that one of his men spent 3 days in Bideford and 2 in Holsworthy doing just this but one of the problems was that dog owners often seemed to leave the bags on the rim of the bins and consequently they appeared full when in fact they still had plenty of space for extra ‘offerings’. Perhaps these dog owners will take the hint?
Increasingly, large scale planning applications are being tied to a requirement to carry out work both to alleviate problems associated with the sites under construction or to meet social requirements. At Westward Ho! for example the Cobalt development will, when a certain number of flats are sold, give Torridge hundreds of thousands of pounds to allow the council to build affordable homes whilst Asda are financing the Clovelly Road/Meddon Street improvements. This seems good but local councillors have had very little input into these Section 106 agreements as they are known – indeed in some cases what was being offered was not what councillors would have wanted for their ward. As a result of a question from councillor Andrew Eastman these agreements are from now on to be run in front of councillors before any final decisions are made. Given that there are several large planning applications coming up in the Bideford-Northam area soon it might be worth contacting your local representative if there is anything that the area might benefit from – so long as it is closely tied in with the actual nature/scope of the development concerned.
Website designed by Jon Hooper
Published and promoted by Jon Hooper, 3 Elizabeth Court, Well Street, Torrington EX38 8EP on behalf of the North Devon Green Party, 1 Taw View Terrace, Bishops Tawton, EX32 0AW
PLEASE NOTE: Not all of the material presented on this site is necessarily Green Party Policy or endorsed by The Green Party.