North Devon Green Party

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20th April '08

So Torridge councillors have voted 17 to 15 to go for a Devon Unitary council. The report in last week’s Journal only touched on what was a serious yet impassioned debate – indeed I have rarely heard such a good one and the closeness of the vote shows how well balanced the feelings were. Councillor Phil Pennington reckoned Torridge residents were being sold short as we did not have enough evidence to reach a meaningful decision – a point echoed by many others. Councillor Caroline Church developed this point saying she felt bamboozled especially as so much new information was being presented to us at the last minute at the meeting and she feared a ‘democratic deficit’ with the proposed new set-up. Several councillors including Bob Hicks, Chris Leather and Sam Robinson highlighted the poor record the present Devon county council has had in helping Torridge – and were fairly sanguine that things would alter for the better under a new unitary body. Councillor Des Shadrick on the other hand argued that a new unitary would be a body that could exploit the strong and easily recognizable name of ‘Brand Devon’ – though I suggested it was more likely to be ‘Brand Devo’ with the northern area being forgotten about in a unitary dominated by the wealth and councillor representation of South Devon. The vote was a recorded one so you can see how your own councillor voted if you wish by accessing the Torridge website. To sum it all up it was a good debate with far reaching outcomes - none of which we can tell about with any certainty.

It seems only a few weeks ago I was writing about the projected redevelopment by Braddick’s of their old carpet warehouse in Torrington Street, East-the-Water and my belief that this would set off a ‘domino effect’ where other similar sites would come yup for development – and it hasn’t taken long to come true. The owner of Kirkhams Tyres in Torrington Street has just submitted an application to demolish their existing building and replace it with 13 flats. The design is intriguing and a real departure from recent developments on both sides of the river. The accompanying drawing reproduced here with the permission of the architects shows the structure as it would appear from the river side – an interesting mix of old and new and certainly not a bog-standard ‘tower block’ approach. In their supporting documents the architects have submitted a ‘Design Statement’ which explains several points. Their design is such as to ‘prevent balconies projecting out over the river and over dominating the architectural character of the area’ and ‘subject to available budget’ they intend providing ‘Rainwater harvesting to flush toilets’, ‘Solar thermal hot water heating’, ‘Bore hole Geothermal heat sourcing for use with under floor heating’ and even a ‘green sedum roof- - literally a lawn on the roof. All good stuff, if it is provided but the main problem is with the site of the building. Standing right next to the river it is clearly at risk from floods. Notwithstanding the existence of a flood wall already in place the architects have decided to use the entire ground floor for parking (a shop is possibly envisaged in one section) with all living accommodation well above any predicted flood levels. Rather worryingly the ‘Flood Risk Assessment’ does say that ‘Any residents of the proposed flats should be made aware of the flood risk in their tenancy agreement or purchase contracts’. In addition a ‘flood evacuation plan’ will be necessary. The scheme was passed unanimously by the town council plans committee and now goes to Torridge but I understand the application still runs the risk of being rejected on flood grounds. This is a pity as the site is an eyesore and I do wonder what existing residents of Torrington Street will make of this. The final decision will be taken by the Planning Committee of Torridge soon. Even more interesting, however, does this now mean that Brunswick Wharf, the Cattle Market and the building site at the end of Ethelwynne Brown Close are now all undevelopable because of similar fears over flooding? If so then that is going to throw a major spanner in Torridge’s plans to sell them and raise funds for developments elsewhere. I sense a major row developing!

It is often said so long as people get their rubbish removed regularly and the drains work then most don’t really care about much else the council does. There is a lot of truth in that I think – so any discussion of changes in refuse disposal by the council is bound to be of interest. A few weeks ago councillors listened to Ricky McCormack take us through Torridge’s 39 page long ‘Waste Recycling Plan and Waste Minimisation Strategy’. There are lots of fascinating and valuable aspects to this document but attention was focused on just one sentence which stated that the council would be looking at the ‘Evaluation of alternative weekly collections of residual waste and trial if appropriate.’ Councillor Gaye Tabor inquired that if we accepted the ‘Strategy’ would we be agreeing to fortnightly rubbish collections? Mr.McCormack pointed out that we had to examine it but the final decision over whether to go ahead or not rested with councillors – it will be fascinating to see how we will react if this is put to us. I say ‘if’ but I should probably write ‘when’ as I suspect this will be a fairly inevitable suggestion.

One of the thorniest problems councillors face is the current mania for building houses in large gardens. For the owner the attraction of a large cash windfall is obvious – indeed so much so that some houses with large gardens have attracted speculators. A Tory MP is now introducing a Parliamentary Bill bearing the wonderful title Land Use (Garden Protection) Bill to give councils specific powers to protect gardens from being redeveloped for housing. Just as I was reading about this Bill I was told that the contentious development site behind 99 Lime Grove has been put on the market for some £800,000. For this you get the house (which will have to be demolished), garden and 0.74 acres of waste land with planning permission for 12 houses. The original planning application went to appeal as local residents raised strong arguments about the poor drainage and traffic problems inherent in any development of the site – which unfortunately the Planning Inspector didn’t accept. One has to wonder also how much houses will cost on this site given the land for each will cost just over £66,000 – and this in a period when house prices are supposedly falling with much new building being put on hold. I will be following the course of this Bill through Parliament with some interest

The Bradworthy Wind Turbines

Councillor Christie's Weblog

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20th April '08