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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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24th May '09
If you read my column two weeks ago you might remember me writing about district councillor Geoff Lee and his attempt to secure a proportion of the purchase price of any council assets for his voters. This failed when no-one came forward to support him – but at last week’s full council meeting he returned to his theme saying if it wasn’t done it would ‘foment anger and distrust’ which seemed a little overblown. He then suggested that spending £80,000 on resurfacing Torrington’s South Street car park would be good public relations for the council. Unfortunately he was then told that under our rules he couldn’t discuss this without giving notice – and so, for the second time, his ideas didn’t progress. If Bideford could secure a proportion of the sale price of the assets within its boundaries we would be doing very well. Sadly 4 out of 5 of Bideford’s major ‘assets’ are on the flood plain of the Torridge and thus cannot be easily developed – although at this month’s town council meeting our new Mayor announced that the Environment Agency have agreed ‘in principle’ to the Bideford Regeneration Initiative plans for development of these 5 sites. This does, of course, raise the interesting point that as yet no-one, other than themselves, have agreed to what the BRI want to do e.g. put a supermarket on the football ground, do away with the car park at East-the-Water wharves etc. I understand details of the suggested schemes will be unveiled for debate at a public exhibition in September. Still even if no final decisions have been taken then there is a feeling that the ‘log jam’ surrounding flood plain development, might, finally, be shifting.
The current spat between Lib-Dem county councillors and Liberals on the town council has yet to be settled but at least it hasn’t stopped the former from attending meetings in the town hall to report on what is happening at County Hall in Exeter. This month’s report came from councillor Humphrey Temperley who began by saying that there was money in the budget for three new libraries in Devon but that six schemes, including one from Bideford, had been put forward. As he then explained if we do not get our act together then the town could be in danger of losing the chance to build a new 21st century facility. As I understand it this is to be on the Pill though no detailed plans have yet come forward. It would be a massive disappointment to the town if a party political tiff saw the town miss out – certainly the electorate would know which groups to blame. Of course if the political make up at County Hall changes after June 4 then spending priorities may well change yet again.
Readers may recall that I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet over long-empty houses in the area. I see that others have now picked up on this which is heartening and Torridge officers are now working on a new scheme which could see the council taking over such houses and reletting them to those in need. To do this, however, they will first have to trace the absentee owners - which isn’t as easy as it sounds. The officers do have some powers of inquiry but wanted to augment these with slightly more powerful ones – and had to get councillors to agree to this. When it was discussed councillor Miranda Cox queried who would control this data and she asked that it be fully debated with the implications being explained to councillors before we went any further. Following her questions it was agreed that we would look into this further before giving carte blanche to our officers to go down this path.
Incidentally, speaking of the new Mayor his choice was accompanied by some rather unusual comments the like of which I cannot ever recall before. He was nominated by councillor Steve Clarke who thought he would make a good Mayor but ‘hoped we could shut him up’! His seconder, councillor Philip Pester, also thought ‘he does talk a lot’ but he was still going to support him. Returning his thanks for being nominated councillor Andy Powell said ‘I shall promise to speak less’ – which might make a good motto for certain councillors, me included.
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