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Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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26th August '07
Torridge is currently ‘consulting’ about a proposed ‘Equality Scheme’ to cover gender, faith, age etc. When it came up for discussion recently it seemed fairly innocuous but Councillor Phil Pennington raised a query re the provision of housing via the planning system viz: should the council insist on more housing for single people in new schemes given that by not stipulating it we were discriminating against this particular group, many of whom are young? This was an intriguing question especially when from figures I have seen it is estimated that by the year 2010 some 40% of UK citizens will be living on their own. The ramifications of this are of course massive. Once again I raised the possibility of bringing back into use living accommodation above shops in Bideford which is currently lying empty. Clearly some isn’t suitable due to problems with access but some exists with separate access and with a little work could be brought back into use. Getting more people living in the town centre once again would help improve overlooking/security of the streets at night – and provide an income for the shops themselves. There is the possibility of grant money available via Torridge to do this but very few shop owners have signed up for the scheme which I think is a great pity.
Given that Bideford is jointly ‘run’ by the district and the town councils I have always thought it odd how few members of the public ever attend meetings of these two bodies. The one committee that does attract any members is Plans. The reason is obvious, of course, people attend to hear their individual planning applications in which they have often invested a lot of time, hope and money. Up until now only councillors could speak at these meetings but as the Journal reported last week Torridge has now adopted a scheme to allow public participation – with one or two caveats. Where a contentious application has generated large numbers of objections (some 800 in the case of Tesco’s at Marsh Farm) the number able to speak will be strictly controlled ‘in order to allow proper time for consideration and debate on each planning application.’ In addition those wishing to speak will have to inform the Committee Clerk before the meeting – so no jumping in and turning the event into a free-for-all. Each speaker will get 3 minutes and there will be a specific ‘slot’ for representatives of the local parish council to put forward the views of the body – which should be interesting in the case of Dolton as readers of the Journal will know! All in all a long overdue move by Torridge to make itself more user-friendly – and I wish the chairman of Plans Hugo Barton good luck in keeping order at what can often be a very highly charged meeting.
Several weeks ago I published details of the allowances paid to the highest ‘earning’ councillors that seemed to have been of interest to a lot of people. At this month’s Full Torridge District Council meeting the subject came up as a result of the meeting of the council’s Independent Remuneration Panel. Headed by an ex-Chief Executive Don Latham who advises some 16, mostly West Country, councils over this ticklish question he was helped by Roger French from the local Health Care Trust and Jane Whittaker from Torridge Voluntary Service. After long thought the Panel set the basic annual allowance at £4800 p.a. with an extra £12,000 for the Leader, £6000 for the Deputy Leader (Des Shadrick) and £4800 for the chairs of the 3 main committees (Bob Hicks, Gay Tabor and Hugo Barton). Their 5 page report was presented at the start of the meeting – a move denounced by councillor Len Ford who wasn’t happy with having it ‘dumped on his desk without time to really digest it’ whilst councillor Andrew Symons inquired where the council was to find the extra £40,000 in payments as nothing had been put in this year’s budget to cover them? The answer seemed to be some rather vague ‘savings’ on postage and stationery. He was joined by councillor Geoff Lee who suggested the proposed 7% increase in allowances was not acceptable to the electorate – a view countered by the Chief Executive John van der Laarschot who gnomically noted ‘When we are cheap we are not always the best.’ I did suggest that if there was £40,000 available perhaps it should be divided among the various ‘Lead members’ i.e. those who are tasked with overseeing certain areas of the council’s work (I, for example, do Historic Buildings) to give them a small budget to carry out their work more easily. This suggestion wasn’t taken up at the meeting but is to be looked at again – as is the whole paper which is to go out to ‘consultation’ before being brought back to the next Full meeting in September.
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