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The Bradworthy Wind Turbines
Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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31th Aug '08
All those who visit the Burton Art Gallery and Museum in the Park will be aware that its long-serving Curator John Butler retired a few months ago but his semi-replacement is now in place. I say ‘semi’ as the post carries the title Visual Arts Manager and its scope will be rather different to that of curator. An advertisement attracted many applicants and seven were interviewed with the job finally being offered to Miranda ‘Tilly’ Clarke who is currently the Gallery Manager at Wimbledon College of Art – which, coincidentally, is where John Butler went to College as well – so a nice piece of continuity there. Tilly was brought up in Bude where her family still live and she should be starting at the Burton in October. Her forte is putting on high quality exhibitions and also, very importantly in this day and age, writing applications for grants. Now that the unpopular scheme to join the Burton with Ilfracombe’s Landmark Theatre and the Queen’s in Barnstaple has died a death it is heartening to see Torridge investing properly in the future of what is a major attraction in the town – something about which we can all be justifiably proud.
Further details on the proposed new structure of local government continue to seep out. Devon county council which has pushed strongly for the abolition of district councils and a new ‘Unitary’ structure has produced a whole series of ‘Profiles’ for the 28 envisaged town ‘hubs’ that Devon will be split into. I have mentioned before how Northam now becomes a satellite of Bideford but the ‘Greater Bideford’ area is now to stretch all the way to Hartland and Welcombe to the West, whilst including Instow and Westleigh to the East but only going as far as Weare Giffard and Monkleigh to the South. The map showing this new area is followed by some 25 pages of statistics which proves, if nothing else, that the area is incredibly varied – and not just between the rural and the urban areas – but also between Bideford and Northam. All this presupposes that central government will steamroller through a ‘Unitary’ council though given its apparent ongoing slow collapse this may not be high on the agenda. Torridge is to hold a meeting at 6.30 on September 1st in the Town Hall to further debate our position on this very contentious issue. Given that Torridge was the only district council in Devon to support ‘Unitary’ status – and then by just 17 votes to 15 – it will be fascinating to see what comes up at this meeting. That these changes are not just academic was brought home to councillors 2 weeks ago when, in a report on Torridge’s ‘Medium Term Financial Plan’ we read the following; ‘There is a risk, given the probability that the Council will be replaced by a new unitary authority in 2010, that a cautious approach to the use of reserves would result in the lost opportunity to undertake projects to benefit Torridge residents. On transfer to anew authority, reserves would be aggregated and at that point, there is no guarantee that reserves previously held by Torridge District Council would be made available for projects in the Torridge area.’ So there we have it, if a ‘Unitary’ council is established then Torridge’s reserves could disappear elsewhere and local people would experience even more disadvantages. As I said before these changes could be extremely important.
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