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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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29th June '08
Some months ago I put a motion to the town council to employ an extra litter collector to tackle what many perceive as a growing problem around the town. At the same time councillor Caroline Church suggested hiring an Environmental Crime Officer. At our June meeting we received figures relating to the posts and were able to question Ricky McCormack, Torridge’s waste supremo. I got a guarantee that any post we paid for would be extra to Torridge’s current coverage of the town – no Torridge cleaner will be deployed elsewhere to the detriment of Bideford. Councillor Roger Vanstone received a promise that the entire parish would be cleaned equally whilst councillor David Ratcliff wanted the town’s coat of arms to be displayed on any handcart used by the operative in order to raise the profile of the town council amongst townspeople. Councillor Tony Inch seconded my proposal expressing the hope that Bideford would regain its pride in being the ‘Little White Town’ rather than being known by some as the ‘Little Grubby Town’. The second post will see an enforcement officer on the streets fining litterers on the spot as well as inspecting the ‘contents of waste receptacles to identify breaches in legislation and those responsible, gathering evidence as required.’ I’m fairly certain the first post will be popular but I’m not so sure about the second – I will wait and see what the public feel.
At the recent Full Torridge District council meeting I again raised the vexed subject of local government restructuring in Devon. This follows presentations to councillors from both North Devon District and Devon County councils which brought to light a whole slew of new facts that we were not aware of – including an extraordinary offer/bribe of £200,000 for each of the 28 town councils in Devon if the Devon County Unitary model is accepted. I asked if we could revisit our vote (which was 17-15 for the county unitary) and was told that we needed to wait until the first thoughts of the Boundary Commission, who are overseeing the whole process, are published on July 7th. Councillor Royston Johns said he had been told that Torridge had been seen as a ‘dithering council’ in the past and any change of position now would reinforce this perception – to which he could only say he wouldn’t be changing his mind – he had always wanted a North Devon based council not one centred on Exeter. Councillor Chris Leather joined in saying ‘We all know this was a rushed process and we had very little information’ and he reckoned we had been ‘steered’ into a bad decision by our officers – to the point where ‘we had shot ourselves in the foot.’ Emotions were running high by this point and were only defused when the council Leader James Morrish promised that we would definitely revisit the whole thing come July 7th – a date I await with interest
We seem to live in a society where no-one is willing to make a decision unless a highly paid consultant has produced a febrile report on the whole thing. As you may have guessed I am not a fan of these ‘experts’ so I was interested to hear that a local paper recently asked Torridge under the Freedom of Information Act how many consultants they had employed and at what cost over the last few years. The answer was supplied and I was intrigued enough to ask how many such requests we received. The council’s solicitor said they were getting 3 to 4 requests per week from people such as MPs, students, people having business with the council amongst others. Torridge isn’t particularly secretive so I was rather surprised at this. It is, of course, only a few weeks since the FoI Act was used to discover the expenses claimed by some leading MPs – a move that shamefully was bitterly fought by Parliament – why does the word hypocrisy come to mind here I wonder? I may put in my own request soon to our local MP to see how much he claims in expenses and how much time he devotes to his second job as a barrister as distinct from his position as our Member of Parliament.
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