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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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24th December '06
Councillors are allowed to submit written questions to the ‘Leadership’ of Torridge District Council at the six weekly full council meeting – which have to be answered in writing. This week I asked about the selling price of two houses recently constructed at Abbotsham where one was an open market house and the other a ‘local needs’ house. I was surprised to learn that ‘the asking prices were £270,000’. I say surprised as such ‘local needs’ houses are meant to go to local people who cannot otherwise access the housing market. One is left to wonder how a ‘local needs’ buyer can afford over a quarter of a million pounds for a house? Another written question from Cllr.Phil Collins asked about our legal agreements covering affordable houses and was told ‘they are as robust as we can make them’. The whole area of local needs and affordable housing is in a shambles in this area and Torridge are to hold a far reaching debate into how to sort the mess out.
Well the great supermarket debate has come and gone – at least in Torrington. Last week the Plans Committee of Torridge District Council visited the sites proposed by Tesco and Somerfield and then met in the Howe Concert Hall for their deliberations. The discussion went very well and I think most people felt the decision was the correct one. Personally I was very unhappy that Torridge did not take the opportunity to put a Section 106 Agreement in place to get some ‘planning gain’ for the town centre as it is clear that a new supermarket, whichever chain was to run it, is going to have a serious impact on the town centre shops and a S106 document could have drawn down funds to improve the central area.
Be that as it may there was at least one funny episode. Several days before the meeting all councillors received a letter from Felix Gummer the Tesco Corporate Affairs Manager. This basically said that Tesco would be the best choice – but it did contain the sentence, ‘Several residents from Selwyn Avenue, which is adjacent to the site, also expressed their support for the scheme.’ As Councillor Rawlinson pointed out there is no such place in Torrington and it seems that some Torringtonians had played a trick on poor Felix - whose father is, of course, Selwyn Gummer. Trick or not it did highlight how ill-informed Tesco were about the local aspects of their application!
The long running saga behind the proposal to put a camouflaged mobile phone mast onto the top of St.Mary’s 14th century church tower came to a head at this week’s meeting of Torridge’s Plans Committee. The council’s officers were recommending we grant permission but the councillors decided otherwise and supported my motion to turn it down on three grounds – such masts should not be placed on a listed building, the mast was too close to a lot of local residents and the opportunity to place the apparatus on existing (and less contentious) masts had not been fully explored. Councillor Roger Tisdale reckoned it would be a mistake to erect such a mast given the possible health problems – and a mistake made now would be very difficult to remedy later. The council’s solicitor intervened to point out that if the mast met Government guidelines it should be accepted – and if it wasn’t then the operator could go to appeal and costs might be awarded against the council. This caused Councillor Morrish to state that he personally ‘was not afraid of an appeal’ adding ‘we owe it to the people of Bideford’. He further expressed his surprise at the involvement of the church in this scheme seeing how it had led to so much anguish and bad feeling – presumably he won’t be on the rector’s Christmas card list this year. As I say the committee backed my motion to reject this application and I shall await developments with interest.
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