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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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24th June '07
Several weeks ago I wrote about a talk I went to given by Professor Pethick on the physical dynamics of the Taw-Torridge estuary and the local coastline. You may recall that I quoted a very senior Devon County Council officer’s estimate as to how much it would cost to remove the old rubbish tip on Northam Burrows (to avoid its being scoured out by the sea) as being £30 million. I was, therefore, astonished at the Journal’s headline that the cost was now estimated at £150 million. I immediately thought back to the saga of Bideford Bridge where tenders to repair the structure came in at £9 million – way above what was expected when an announcement by the local county councillor followed saying that he didn’t think the state of the Bridge was as bad as had been made out and the costs being quoted were thus exorbitant. How on earth do the County manage to get their figures so wrong one wonders? The ‘revised’ assessment of the Bridge’s condition is clearly about saving money – and so I expect is the Northam Burrows one in that by quoting such a ridiculous sum as £150 million then any possibility of removing the tip is instantly seen as far too expensive and thus is not looked at again when solutions to the possible destruction of the pebble ridge through global warming are examined – or am I being paranoid here?
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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