On Saturday morning, in the Pannier Market, I was introduced to Sally Bush, who will be standing as a town councillor in the May elections next year.

I guess Sally is in her twenties, and this would bring a much needed younger person’s perspective on things, which would be an excellent thing.

My concern is that she is standing for the Lib Dems, and, as I have made perfectly clear before, I don’t think party politics should have any place at the local level. My second bugbear is that I’m not sure that she lives in South Molton.

I went to the North Devon District Council (NDDC) Executive Committee meeting this morning as there were two items  relating to South Molton on the agenda – Care Closer to Home and .

In essence NDDC appear to be against the Care Closer to Home proposals and want to have a closer look at the way population growth was worked out and the what the financial model looks like,

NDDC members seem unable to grasp the difference between acute care and long term care. There still seems to be the misapprehension that beds equals hospitals i.e. if the beds are closing the hospital is closing.

The second item of interest to South Molton concerned Norrington Yard. In essence approval was sought to appoint the same agent as that used by Tesco to explore the sale/development of the Tesco site and the NDDC site.  Lots of waffle but no real action – both Cllrs John Moore and David Worden did speak in favour of taking the views of South Molton people into account and ensuring that things didn’t end up stagnating again.

It was good to see Councillors Goodman, Moore and Worden at the meeting – along with our Deputy Town Clerk, Andrew Coates.

I went to presentation in the Assembly Rooms on Monday afternoon given by McCarthy and Stone, a development company that specialises in building homes for the elderly (generally considered to be those over 60!).

They are currently having discussions with North Devon District Council before they submit a planning application for 34 one and two bed roomed apartments behind Moors Yard, to the south of the Community Hospital and Eastleigh.

McCarthy and Stone have a good reputation, and whilst I’m always suspicious of developers, this largely looks like it could be ‘a good thing’ and fulfill a real need for some people. Although it certainly won’t be affordable by everybody. Prices are likely to be quite high, as will the service charge and there will be no social housing element (see also my final point).

The apartments will be spread over 2/3 floors with an even mix of 1-bed and 2-bed flats. The building will have two lifts, a community lounge, a house-manager on-site and a guest room. It will all be wheelchair accessible and special provision will be made for the needs of the more frail elderly.

There will be covered ‘parking’ for four mobility scooters (with charging points), and four disabled parking bays i.e. much wider than normal. There will be an additional 30 ordinary parking bays and four or five bays for visitors.

One of my major concerns is that the amount of parking is insufficient. Apart from the visitors’ parking, there ought to be more parking in each of the categories, including for mobility scooters.

The access to the complex is also somewhat problematic. Traffic will approach from the north i.e. it will come past the Community Hospital and then head south in front of Eastleigh.

The developers have said that they would ‘facilitate’ pedestrian/mobility scooter access to South Street via Moors Yard. This will be somewhat difficult as there is no public right of way, and it’s not exactly appropriate to have elderly pedestrians mixing with garage/workshop traffic.

My final issue is that this isn’t really for local people. I think it’s primarily aimed at retirees from elsewhere – London, Birmingham Manchester etc.

The sales pitch can be found on their website.

EDIT: This development has changed its name and is now called Squire Court.

Well done NDDC for removing the fly tipping detritus from outside the old Phoenix recycling centre.

The first of a series of Antique Fairs was held in the Pannier Market today,

A good selection of stalls, no tat, and reasonably priced.

Have a look at the website here.

Let’s hope they go from strength-to-strength.

Outside the old recycling centre.

I’ve reported it via the NDDC flytipping website. Let’s see how long it stays there.