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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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22nd July '07
‘Torridge Matters’ is the newsletter of the Torridge Voluntary Services who are based in Bridgeland Street and its latest edition has a wealth of detail on projects, funding and training opportunities in the area. Reading the latest one my eye was caught by the five page guide to various funds available to local people covering a huge spectrum of possibilities. The one that really appealed to me was the one offering grants of up to £30,000 to community groups and not-for-profit organisations who ‘wish to implement sustainable energy projects in their buildings.’ The remit is actually very wide and they quote examples as varied as the renovation of existing facilities to incorporate micro-generation technology through to the purchase and installation of a renewable energy system. Now with that sort of money I fell certain a lot of local groups in the town could benefit – so if you think you might why not contact TVS for more details?
At the last Full council meeting of Torridge the problems surrounding the pebble ridge at Westward Ho! surfaced again. I had raised this at the previous meeting with regard to the ‘hands-off’ attitude ordered by English Nature – a position that has clearly upset a lot of people not least Cllr.Andrew Eastman from Appledore who waxed lyrical and loudly on the need for Torridge not to be dictated to by this organisation. I did point out that Westward Ho! beach is the only large tourist beach in the whole district and given the parlous state local agriculture is in we must safeguard it as a major income earner for local people. I also noted that Professor Pethick, who has been working on the physical geography of the estuary and the local coastline, has appealed to local people to share their knowledge of the area on the basis that experience is more valuable than theory. He can be contacted via the Northern Devon Coast & Countryside Service at Bideford’s old railway station.
Torridge has now published the allowances/expenses paid to its members over the last financial year and it makes interesting reading. The basic allowance was £4276.80 before tax and only 5 councillors received just this, I being one of them. Of the other 31 travel and subsistence bumped up the basic allowance as did ‘Special Responsibility Allowances’ paid for being chairs/vice-chairs of committees etc. The largest sum went to the ex-Leader Pat Ferguson who received £14,323 whilst Allin Bewes was paid the second largest sum at £10,421 closely followed by James Morrish who received £10,275. I quote these figures partly for the public interest I am sure exists and partly to show that being a councillor is not a way to riches as many people think – indeed Torridge’s allowances are well below those of many other councils. The government over the last few years has pushed allowances up but being a councillor still doesn’t actually provide a ‘career’ as such – but how many of the public would want full-time, waged councillors? Just to put this into context our MP Geoffrey Cox received £180,563 last year (plus his earnings from his work as a barrister) – personally I think councillors are far better value!
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