I wonder whether this happened upstream or downstream of the Sewage Works?

EDIT: It seems the incident was caused by anaerobic digestate  getting into the River Mole a few kilometres upstream of the sewage works.  It appears (according to unconfirmed reports) that heavy rain caused a tank containing the digestate to overflow and this, allied with low water levels in the river, killed the fish. If the water levels had been higher the spill would have been far more diluted and thus caused less harm. 

We are investigating a pollution incident on the River Mole, near South Molton, after a member of the public reported seeing dead fish. At the moment we are not certain of the pollutant or the source. We have a team on site taking samples and gathering evidence. pic.twitter.com/qcMMtfdSZy

— Environment AgencySW (@EnvAgencySW) July 31, 2019

Here at last! The ATM machine is in place, the CCTV has been installed and now it’s just a question of testing it and filling it with money! So hopefully in a week or two it will be fully operational.

Think Sink is the second strand of South West Water’s campaign to minimise blocked sewers.

You’ll doubtless remember the giant 64m long fatberg which was recently found blocking a sewer in Sidmouth. This was dwarfed by the massive 250m long fatberg weighing 130 tonnes found in east London in 2017.

Fatbergs form when people put things such as fat, wet wipes, sanitary towels, nappies and condoms, down sinks and toilets.

In essence don’t put fat, grease, or oil down sinks, or anything other than the three Ps (pee, poo, paper) down toilets.

Love Your Loo is one strand of a new campaign by South West Water to try and minimise sewer blockages.

In essence it’s about the three Ps – pees, paper and poo – which are the only things that should be flushed down your loo.

Flushing anything else can cause blockages which can lead to flooding and pollution, and of course costs a great deal of money to deal with.

Unblocking sewers costs South West Water about £8.5 million a year – money which is paid by the consumer.

Even if you’re not connected to mains sewage you’ll still want to follow the rules.

The turnout in North Devon for the the European elections was a not too shabby 38.06%.  Slightly up on the turnout of 36.76% for the last European elections in 2014.

The votes aren’t actually being counted until Sunday evening with the result being declared sometime after 10pm. This is because it’s apparently  a criminal offence for any country in the EU to publish exit polls, or any information about how people have voted during the election, before 22:00 BST on Sunday 26 May.  This is to avoid the voting in one country influencing the voting in another.

The first elections were held on Thursday in the UK and the Netherlands.  Ireland votes today (Friday), as does the Czech Republic. The latter also votes tomorrow, along with Latvia, Malta and Slovakia.  The other 21 countries vote on Sunday.

Why are the North Devon planning office so stupid at times? I know they’re massively overworked, but why put a planning site notice so far away from the site in question (the little garage on New Road just before the road to Sainsbury’s) when there’s a perfectly good place to put it very much closer? It’s also unsafe to read because it’s pinned on the telegraph pole so that it can only be read if standing in the road!

The planning site notice is the big white bit of paper on the left flapping in the breeze. This also begs the question Why are there two poles so close to together?

And no, it’s not for a house but for rebuilding the garage and turning it into a shed.

It was lovely to hear a young lad playing the piano in the Pannier Market today. All thanks to the Meddlers who thought it would be a good idea to have an old upright piano in there.

I’ve taken these snippets from our MP’s (the Conservative Peter Heaton-Jones) website:

” We had a lot of seats to defend, because the last council elections were held on the same day as the 2015 general election.”

The fact that the last council elections were held on the same day as the general election wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference in terms of the number of seats that had to be defended!

“But despite all that, the LibDems have failed to take overall control of North Devon, unlike councils elsewhere.”

Not true until the result of the Chittlehampton election, which is being held on 13 June, is known. At the moment the LibDems have 21 seats with the others having 20.

 “They lost a seat in South Molton, where we elected our first Conservative councillor for more than twenty years.”

The LibDems did NOT lose a seat in South Molton.  Before the boundary changes there were two seats in South Molton – one held by the LibDems and one by an Independent. Following the boundary change, the ward of South Molton is slightly bigger as it now incorporates Mill-on-the-Mole. It also has three seats. The LibDems won two of those seats and the Conservatives won one.

“And they also lost in their heartland of Barnstaple Central as well.”

The ward is an entirely new one and has only one seat – won by the Green Party. It’s predecessor Central Town (Barnstaple)  had two seats, both of which were LibDem.

Following a review by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) the number of district councillors in North Devon was cut by one – from 43 to 42 – and a number of the ward boundaries were also changed.

” independent candidates and ward boundaries skew the figures too.”

They do skew the figures, but there fewer Independent candidates in this election than in the previous one – nine as opposed 20 previously. When all is said and done the Conservatives had 36% of the votes in 2015 and only 26% this year. Contrast this with the figures for the LibDems – 25% in 2015 and 38% this year.

This a table of how the parties fared in the local elections.

It seems pretty clear to me that the big losers were the Conservatives and UKIP. Labour not so much. On the other hand I am not a  psephologist, so what do I know.

The winners were the Lib Dems, Greens and Independents.

Possibly I’m interpreting the figures in a very biased way. But they don’t strike me as being as what one would expect if there were a pro-Brexit vote. After all, the two big winners – the Lib-Dems and the Greens – are anti Brexit. Of course, it’s impossible to determine the views of the many successful independents.

Having said that, national politics shouldn’t rear its ugly head at the local level , but it does.

The things that I heard most complaints about whilst campaigning (e.g. parking, inappropriate over-development, the state of the roads) can be laid squarely at the door of central government. Planning policies set by central government have largely determined parking spaces that new builds have to provide. Changes to parking restrictions (yellow lines for example) are, to a very large extent, determined by available funding. Of course, there is also no money to maintain roads.

According to the Local Government Association local councils would have lost almost 60% of their central government funding between 2010 and 2020.

The other big issue was (as ever) dog poo. Apparently it’s a big problem in South Molton. Has it always been a big issue? Are dogs starting to poo more ? Fewer owners picking up? Or, as I rather suspect, are there a few more owners who don’t give a damn!