T HE RECENT work undertaken by the Bridge Trust and Torridge District Council at the Nonconformist section of the Old Town graveyard has received warm plaudits from everyone I have talked to about it.

What was a crumbling wall disfigured with posters has been transformed into a very smart looking feature topped with some very handsome coping stones and railings while the new house replaces the old caretaker's cottage which was demolished some years ago. The whole scheme has genuinely improved this area. The removal of the now closed toilets will be next so, hopefully, what was a rather grotty area will now be something we can all be proud of — and perhaps we can now start thinking of similar areas that could benefit from an architectural makeover.

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ONE OF THE town's county councillors, Alison Boyle, addressed the town council this month and told us of a meeting she called at Bideford College to look at both car parking problems in Moreton Park and littering around the school. Unfortunately the parking issue hasn't been helped by the recent closure of part of Clovelly Road which has massively increased traffic flows through the Moreton estate whilst littering is an on-going and seemingly intractable problem.

Indeed Cllr Emma Farringdon pointed out "with regret" that not just littering but also the behaviour of children around Coldstream Stores near the school had actually deteriorated since the meeting at the school. She added that between 8.45 and 9.15 every day such large numbers of children were to be found outside the shop that people trying to walk along the pavement were being forced to step off into the roadway so great was the crowd. Some councillors expressed surprise that students weren't in school by 9 but Mrs.Boyle promised to take the issue up with the school authorities to see what could be done.

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TORRIDGE District Council signed up to the "10:10" initiative in December — which means we have pledged to reduce our CO2 emissions by 10% over the next year. James Morrish and Miranda Cox, who proposed and seconded the motion both spoke powerfully in favour of the scheme saying that the council needed to do its bit.

James suggested we won't be keeping Riverbank House floodlit at night anymore — but then rather spoilt his "green" credentials by admitting he left his TV on stand-by — which was met with good natured boos and hisses from the rest of the council.

Not unexpectedly, given recent news items, various members announced themselves to be "climate change deniers". Chris Leather, Steve Clarke and Bob Hicks all admitted they didn't believe in man-made global warming — with Chris adding for good measure that he thought Fairtrade was a con. Bob reckoned that at our next meeting a "conservationist" (who can he mean?) will ask us to vote that the Moon is made of green cheese, while Steve had a bee in his bonnet about the number of buses passing through Northam every day. Not surprisingly given these rather random arguments the vote to support the motion was overwhelmingly in favour.

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AT THE recent full TDC meeting I raised what I characterised as a "bizarre anomaly". Ricky McCormack, our Head of Operational Services had reported how the most recent figures "indicated that cleanliness within Torridge was significantly above that of the national average". Unfortunately he then went on to point out that there appeared to be little correlation between actual performance and customer satisfaction — indeed the latter figure showed that satisfaction with Torridge was the lowest in Devon and in the bottom 25% of councils nationally. Our now departed Chief Executive John van der Laarschot thought we needed to focus on "marketing" to persuade our communities that we are being successful while Cllr Chris Leather reckoned that we "hadn't been very good in blowing our own trumpet" and though he wasn't suggesting we "con" the public we needed to inform them of what we were doing. You might think that keeping the streets cleaner would deserve a more pragmatic approach but there we are! Here in Bideford, of course, our street cleaning team rises to some major challenges (New Year's Day, the Bike Race) but I think we will have to re-visit my suggestion of the town council hiring another street cleaner — or do as Northam does which is to pay Torridge for 2 hours extra cleaning a week over and above what is normally scheduled.

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THE LONG-RUNNING and rather sorry saga of the composter at Torrington's Deep Moor pit rumbles on. Designed by the county council to turn waste from Bideford and the rest of Torridge into compost the scheme has been plagued with spiralling costs and planning cock-ups. I am now told that all the waste water has to be tankered away for processing.

Can this be true — I do not recall any officer telling us about the extra lorry movements required — which by their very nature would seem to be inconsistent with the green nature of the plant. In addition councillors were told the other day that the facility has no electricity connection owing to a dispute between land-owners. What on earth is the county council playing at out there?

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I HAVE written before about how annoying, but perfectly legal, retrospective planning applications are to many. The owners of Atlantic Village have now gone down this route for the removal of the "landscaped areas" in the car park in front of Asda.

Admittedly these small areas of bushes and planters didn't make up a large area but they did serve to soften the huge expanse of tarmac – which was their original role when the car park was first laid out. Their removal was followed up by the company seeking retrospective permission.

The town council plans committee grudgingly gave their assent to this fait accompli but put in a strongly worded note that any further removal of greenery — especially on the Village's frontage would not be acceptable — even if the company followed the normally accepted procedure.