I spotted this cabinet at the Station Road entrance to Pathfields this morning. It’s good news, as this is a BT Infinity cabinet which means that super fast broadband will be coming to Pathfields in the not too distant future. Hopefully other such cabinets will be sprouting up in other parts of South Molton shortly!

This is the sort of practice that I hate. An emergency number that won’t be included in any telephone price plans and that could cost 40p a minute (or more) from mobile phones! South West Water ought to be ashamed of themselves.

If North Devon District Council’s (NDDC) capital expenditure programme can be relied on, then the central car park in South Molton should be resurfaced next financial year.

NDDC have the following items for South Molton  in their capital expenditure budget at present:

2014/15
South Molton Car Park Extension (Sheep Pens) £30,000

2015/16
Demolition at South Molton Recycle £75,000
South Molton Car Park Extension (Sheep Pens) £96,126
South Molton Car Park resurfacing £200,000

2016/17
Nothing

2017/18
Nothing

So it looks likes there’s no chance of the Cattle Market moving to Pathfields for quite a while yet!

Councillor Greenslade is obviously a very busy man, but surely he reads his e-mail?

I sent him the following over a week ago (Friday 13 February 2015) and am still awaiting a response:

“Dear Councillor Greenslade,

I’m absolutely dismayed by what’s happening to the Local Plan, and its potential effect on South Molton:

• The first iteration that went out to consultation in January 2013 showed 1,100 new dwellings for South Molton and 30 hectares of employment land.
• The second iteration, published in June 2014, had an increase in dwellings of about 10% to 1,208 and a decrease in employment land of about 40% – to just 17.6 hectares.
• The proposed amendments that were endorsed by the NDDC Executive on Tuesday 10 February show a further increase in housing to 1,240 and a further considerable decrease in employment land to 10.8 hectares, albeit with an additional 1.5 hectares being allocated to a re-located cattle market.

Why does it appear that the NDDC Executive and NDDC planning officers have totally ignored the views of local residents who quite clearly wanted fewer houses and more employment land?

Were South Molton Town Council consulted at any stage before these latest modifications? If so, when?

It seems that the Local Plan won’t actually be adopted until 2016! Why has there been such an inordinate delay?

It appears to me that North Devon District Council treats South Molton and its residents with complete and utter disdain as shown by these ill-considered  changes to the Local Plan and the Tesco debacle.

Yours faithfully,

Marc Cornelius”

I’ve put an updated plan of the proposals here.

I’ve noticed that some changes have been made to the SMTC website which make it far more useful and user friendly.  A very welcome step in the right direction. Well done.

Good fun in the Pannier Market yesterday evening.

Pancake races for all age groups. Very well organised, and Stephen White was in his element acting as ‘compere’, ably assisted by Spud as starter and Jeremy Yabsley as judge.  Members of the Friends of South Molton Parish Church  helped in various ways and I think a good time was had by all.

What on earth is going on with the Local Plan?

The first iteration that went out to consultation in 2013 showed 1,100 new dwellings for South Molton and 30 hectares of employment land.

The second iteration published in 2014 had an increase in dwellings of about 10% to 1,208 and a decrease in employment land of about 40% to just 17.6 hectares.

The proposed amendments that went to the NDDC Executive on Tuesday show a further increase in housing to 1,240 and a further massive decrease in employment land to 10.8 hectares with an additional 1.5 hectares being allocated to a re-located cattle market.

Were SMTC consulted at any stage before these further modifications?

It strikes me that the views of local residents have, once again, been totally ignored. So much for consultation!

Having had a look at the Connecting Devon and Somerset web pages it now looks like most of South Molton is due to get superfast broadband in October 2015 – or at least that’s the date for my postcode!

Have a look at here and zoom in, or put in the post-code that you’re interested in.

I’m quite astounded, as the last time I looked – just before Christmas – it said something along the lines of “survey due between October 2015 and March 2016”, and I’m sure my moaning about this to ex-colleagues at BT wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference.

I’ve come across some figures showing how council tax arrears in the NDDC area are continuing to rise, with a particularly big jump between 2013 and 2014.