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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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28th Sept '08
When we consider how bad the Summer has been the glorious weather that suddenly appeared for the town’s Carnival was a wonderful boost to everyone. The much larger than usual number of ‘walking entries’ really enlivened the show and it was so good to feel the real sense of community spirit abroad. Politicians may blather on about our ‘broken society’ but occasions like this show how spurious such claims are. Admittedly we are a small town and things may well be different in cities but what a marvellous evening we had – so congratulations to all those involved – whether behind the scenes or in the procession.
This month’s town council meeting was full of emotion and impassioned debate about amongst other things the prayers issue, dogs in Devonshire Park woods and the future of the Bideford Regeneration Initiative. The prayers argument is clearly divisive and I personally feel strongly that spiritual beliefs should not play a part in what is a very secular meeting. You will have read the various arguments in last week’s Journal but I stand by what I said at the meeting; the best religious speaker we have is the gentleman from the Quakers – who says nothing but opens our meetings with a period of silence in which we can gather and focus our thoughts – yet I do wonder what our voters make of all this introspective navel gazing? It may be important to us but I suspect people out there cannot understand why we aren’t concentrating on things important to them. Of course, if one particular councillor ever becomes Mayor I imagine we will be seeing a pagan ‘minister’ as the council chaplain which would cause a lot more interest than the current row.
As to the dogs a lot of good points were made by those members of the public who attended the meeting. Margaret Shambrook alleged there was confusion over the council’s ‘public consultation’ and queried the cost of policing the woods to ensure dog-walkers kept their pets on the lead and a Mrs.Carter of Devonshire Park made the serious point that she didn’t want to be ‘criminalised’ merely for dog-walking. Councillor Andy Powell who designed the policy of banning free-running dogs in the woods came in for a lot of stick but as he pointed out there is an ‘embarrassingly large excess of dog mess in the woods’ – and there is the problem of dogs chasing wildlife on the site. He also mentioned problems with surrounding residents – which include someone in Soloman Drive dumping an old fridge in the woods and another in Virginia Close throwing potato peelings over their back garden fence – evidently it isn’t just some of the dog owners who do not have much respect for these woodlands. When the vote came 8 were in favour of ensuring dogs were kept on a lead with 6 against. This Winter will see teams of volunteers working in the woods to bring the area back to health whilst the scheme will continue for a year and then the council will re-examine the rules concerning dogs to see if they should be relaxed or not. I should note here that councillor David Fulford pointed out the wider problem of dog fouling in the town – and that a resident of Devonshire Park has taken to spraying paint around piles of dog faeces on the pavement to highlight their presence, something which also happens in Appledore so I am told! Direct action over dog poo is a new one on me.
When Asda applied to construct their new store in Bideford one thing they agreed to with Devon county council was a traffic management plan which included the provision of a bus service between their store, the Quay and East-the-Water which would also run via the Pannier Market. At our recent town council meeting councillor David Ratcliff asked Bideford’s county councillor Hugo Barton why this part of the agreement hadn’t been implemented as the bus provided doesn’t cross the Bridge and goes nowhere near the Market? We heard that the Beacon bus company who run the service had no vehicles small enough to negotiate the roads around the Market area – which led David to query how they had been awarded the contract in the first place if they couldn’t meet the requirements? It was a good question which sadly received no answer. It is quite dispiriting when so many seemingly good ideas just wither away through a combination of seeming indifference and unconvincing excuses.
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