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Much is made of local produce, but where the heck can you find all these firms that are supposedly on your doorstep?
In an attempt to get all such organisations under one roof, Devon County Council is putting together A Green Taste of Devon at RHS Garden Rosemoor in Great Torrington from 11am to 4pm on Wednesday September 10.
According to the press release: “The exhibition is a showcase for producers to find new markets for their food and drink, and for hoteliers, B&Bs, restaurants and shops to source more Devon produce for their visitors. The event is also a chance for companies to share green solutions and purchasing eco-friendly products and services.”
Councillor Margaret Rogers, Devon County Council Executive Member for Environment, told the PRSD: “People are increasingly interested in the quality of food, how it is grown and how environmentally friendly it is in terms of packaging and waste.
“Locally produced food and drink are also sought more and more by people wishing to see a reduction in food miles. This trade exhibition addresses all of those issues and it could enable more firms in the county to share their experience to help make Devon even greener.”
For an exhibitors pack or to reserve tickets call 01392 383428 or 01392 382176.
Back in the days of Pan-Am, air was the sexy option. Now we all have to be a bit more circumspect, which could be why Exeter International Airport has set itself a target of achieving carbon neutrality in its ground operations by 2015.
The airport has also forecast passenger figures will increase from the one million in 2007 to 1.9 million in 2015 rising to 3.375 b y 2030.
Councillor Gordon Hook (that’s Green Gordon, to you), vice chair of the Environment, Economy and Culture Scrutiny Committee, told the PRSD: “It’s absolutely right that people are concerned about local transport links but we also have to look at the global impact. As a society we have to challenge the concept of ongoing expansion.”
Then consider that most of the tourist Euros are haemorrhaging out of the area through the airport rather than being brought in.
And the predicted figures we have are: “The direct number of jobs at Exeter International Airport is expected to rise from the current figure of 1,400 to around 3,500 by 2030. The airport’s contribution to the local economy is estimated to grow from £105 million in 2007 to £264 million by 2030. Flybe is also keen to develop an academy to provide career training opportunities for those interested in a career as pilots, engineers or cabin crew.”
Public consultation on the airport’s draft master plan is ongoing until September 30, and Exeter International Airport will consider comments for the adopted master plan, which will be published by the end of the year.
Chris Chapman and Kate King are working on a film telling the story of the history of Dartmoor, give that it’s quite old, this is a fairly hefty task. Lee Morgan spoke to them to find out more
There’s a film of David Alford playing the bones – rattling out an upbeat percussion to Mark Bazeley’s melodoen. It’s a clip which was filmed through the making of Chris Chapman and Kate King’s The Story of Dartmoor, and might not even make it into the final edit, but it highlights that Dartmoor is not just about the landscape and it’s not just about the people. It’s about both of these elements working together, shaping each other.
Chris has spent years documenting the environs of Dartmoor, and teaming up with Kate to make a documentary on its history seemed like the logical, if giant, next step.
It would be easy to skirt over the subject, paying tribute to the breadth of the story, but Chris and Kate, who both live on the moor, are looking to include the depth of the story as well. The object is to tell Dartmoor’s tale and be both entertaining and educational.
The film opens with geologist Dr Kevin Page talking to camera. “It’s a beautiful day on Dartmoor,” he says, “and four hundred million years ago it was also beautiful day, but although its hard to believe now there were no rocks – this was once a warm tropical sea.” He goes on to explain the formation of the moor, which is fundamental to its usage and appearance, and is central to man’s relationship with it, through agriculture and industry – tin and clay mining. The longevity and depth of that involvement is paid out by Dartmoor being one of the most concentrated sites of archeological interest in Western Europe.
But the moor is not a museum. It is a living, breathing environment where generations have earned their living. And part of the project is to record this.
“It’s a big thing,” said Chris. “We care a great deal about this place. Its been important not to skim the surface. We set out on this project knowing it would require a lot of effort and take a long time, but we think the result will be worth it.”
The debate about the landscape is ongoing, and the film doesn’t look too far into the future but rather highlights the past of the landscape and the people, posing the question of sustainability. Alice Oswald’s poem Dart, with lines read by Alice Oswald herself, will be woven into the film. “This is a real coup and we are extremely pleased,” said Kate.
As a history goes, the moor holds some surprises. In 2004 a previously unrecorded stone row, lying fallen or perhaps never erected, was found on Cut Hill – one of the highest regions of the moor. Plymouth University Geography Deparment investigated further with a GPS linked probe and found another stone floating in the peat. Pollen analysis around this stone indicated a date of approx 3300 BC, placing Cut Hill stone row on a par with the earliest building phase of Stonehenge.
The film follows the seasons, as does life on the moor – stallion selection, lambing or even Widecombe Fair are events which mark out the time. Other events are more imptromptu. “It helps to keep your ear to the ground and know as many people as possible,” said Chris.
Even in 2008 there’s always something new to be discovered and it helps for the artists to be members of the community. Being ‘immersed in the reality of here’ has been key, and word of mouth has been the real way of discovering new events.
And a soundtrack from established moor musicians has been a bonus. The film has been made with the music of Nigel Shaw of Seventh Wave Music, also based on Dartmoor.
“We’ve been very fortunate to have access to music written on the moor,” said Chris. It’s all part of belonging to the culture of the area.
Knowing where to go is vital for a filmmaker – with hours of trekking and waiting for the right shot, surrounded by the movement and stillness of the moor. And the music is important for its empathy to the environment.
It’s been a labour of love and has been a challenge on a tight budget.
“People can be forgiving if the content is good, and you maintain your integrity,” said Chris. And for the renowned photographer this project has seen the best photography he’s done.
“I’ve learned so much over the course of this film,” he said.
Even with the incredible network of contacts, the research and planning of the film has been considerable. The film on the history of Dartmoor and followed on from the short films Chris and Kate made on the subject of small schools in Devon. But condensing the story of generations has been a task in itself, let alone following up the new ideas and opportunities that the making of the film has unearthed.
“The Dartmoor film has taken its own trajectory and other films have grown out of it as a response to what people have said. It’s been an embryonic project that could lead to other things, like a film on the history of tin mining, or the quarrying industry or even more of the landscape and its people,” said Kate.
As part of the project, students from South Devon College have shadowed the team to pick up techniques and watch the film develop. One of the students, Amanda Cornish, who joined the team through an initiative by Devon Artsculture, has followed the filmmaking intently.
“Amanda has been with us since the beginning,” said Chris, “and she’s been really clued up and energetic. It’s wonderful to work with someone who’s grown up in the digital age.”
And the changing ages, the varying approaches and the rhythm of life on the moor is what the film is trying to capture. In the blurb it says: ‘the 12-month assignment will tell the story of Dartmoor from its geological beginnings, revealing its rich archaeological heritage, the development of its resources, its farming, future and potential for sustainability’. Integral to The Story of Dartmoor is the story of communities and the story of people.
• To find out more about The Story of Dartmoor, which is due to be released around Christmas with running time of around an hour, visit the website
Our favourite architect Ivan Jordan takes a look the recent risers in and around Devon.
Big buildings have not been a strong point in Devon’s architecture of late. Good work has been done in relatively small packages: Exeter’s modernist-influenced Picturehouse, for example. In the meantime, a Devon vernacular has become established, consisting of timber boarded everything. Acceptable design in Devon, it appears, has to resemble corduroy on at least one elevation. And it has to be of a polite scale, with overhanging eaves. And a deck.
Then, like buses, three major construction schemes complete in the same year: Exeter’s Princesshay Scheme, Plymouth’s Drake Circus and The University of Plymouth’s Roland Levinsky Building. Each comes with a fanfare and each is undeniably an improvement on that which was there before. They are the three stories of building in Devon this year.
The opening of two new retail centres in Devon was to many a sign that the county, after years of waiting, was catching up with other cultural hotspots such as Peterborough or Croydon.
Plymouth’s Drake Circus hit that note with perfect pitch, but Exeter’s Princesshay was a pleasant surprise. Much revised from the original scheme of the 1990s, it is the best post-war urban design in Exeter. Elements such as the Roman Wall are successfully integrated within the public realm, and entirely new places in the city have been created. Jutting apartments give strong rhythm above the shops and express the mixed use of the buildings well, and curved sandstone cladding offers a lesson in contemporary use of a traditional local material.
However, Princesshay is not all good. The spatial design is often let down by the architecture itself: oversized blank elevations flank spaces that demand intimacy; glass buildings have no transparency; most disappointingly, the orientation of the entire development is made suspect by an ill-considered relationship to the cathedral.
Much has been made of the view of the cathedral, to which the main thoroughfare has been axially aligned. Sighting the cathedral towers, the visitor is given an expectation of a processionary route through the arcade, across Bedford Square and in to the cathedral precincts. Not so. Instead, one is drawn to a dismal anticlimax, the lost corner of Bedford square, flanked by a brick wall and the fag–strewn steps to the rear of Wagamamma. There is an abundance of precedent to inform the designer of other ways to use the view of the cathedral. For example, how exciting it is in Venice to have to find one’s way to St Marks through a maze of alleys and cloisters, afforded only the occasional glimpse of the tower. To promise a promenade to Exeter Cathedral and then fail to deliver it is a schoolboy error.
Despite the flaws, Princesshay offers a quality of space that is worlds apart from the high street that it runs parallel to, and for that reason alone the designers should be applauded.
Plymouth’s Mall by comparison is a monument to stupidity. As one approaches on the Exeter Road, it presents an extraordinary composition of overlapping huge-scale cladded panels fanning out behind the bombed out church, like a surrealist collage with ice cream wafers. Behind that is an indeterminate mass of car parks, curving up to present vast brick buttocks to the university on top of the hill. In the centre of all this is the shopping mall itself, fantastically anonymous. One does not know whether to laugh or cry at the ensemble.
So to the Levinsky building, which is the only one of the three that can claim architectural significance. Where Princesshay and Drake Circus are comprised of indentikit built forms, this is a stridently European object that plays expressively with roof, wall and window and with some success.
Not for this building the clear legibility of a David Chipperfield. It is origami on a seven-storey scale. The copper skin is cut and folded, forming edges that slice the foggy Plymouth atmosphere. Windows are patterned on its surface like clumps of pixels, and inner storeys are revealed in cross section beneath its crumpled shell.
Having set the challenge of a complex form, the building’s second act is to draw the visitor in with a strong, clear entrance to the South. Many non-classical buildings fail at this, somehow unable to present a legible face to the world, but the Levinsky leaves no one in any doubt. A wedge shaped chunk is cut from its bulk, with steps up to the entrance doors between dark stone flanks, overlooked by a terrace that mediates between the height of the “tower” behind and pavement below.
The complexity continues inside, but unhappily with less success. One arrives into a sky-lit four-storey atrium. This space ought to be huge, but the escalator and the fine art studios above feel shoehorned in. Walking along the gallery towards the first floor cafe, there is barely room for circulation without pushing the art students, hunched over laptops at two-seat tables, into the void.
Exploring the architecture and 3D design departments, one is presented with the same sense of the squeezing of functional areas into space designed for.. well, space. The seven storeys felt like a stack of boxes that one would only want to peek into. Progressing up the tower was also very noisy, infused as it was with the cacophony of the Plymouth gales outside and loud lift machinery.
Some of the buildings internal structure is beautifully finished, and the mezzanine levels at the top of the atrium could be excellent spaces for their purpose, which is the display and review of design and architectural work. The visual openness between the departments, across the open space they share, can only help to enrich the work done there.
Critics have made the point that the Levinsky was designed as a “flagship” building, the insides not fully considered at the early stages. However, as is often the case, the architects appointed at construction stage were not the firm that won the original design competition. It’s a common scenario: cost conscious clients seek to maximise the floor area of their investment, and out comes the metaphorical hatchet, chopping out the fun bits. We don’t know if this happened during the construction of the Roland Levinsky Building, but it would account for the sense of mismatched scales.
There are other flaws, such as the ground floor gallery with blank glass walls on to the pavement, but despite my misgivings, I think the Roland Levinsky is a brave building and I like it.
The stories these three schemes tell are very different. Princesshay is a Donna Tartt novel: well considered, with moments of brilliance, ultimately a pedestrian affair. The Roland Levinsky Building is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: an attractive, purposeful face presented to the world, with a confused soul. Drake Circus is the airport novela and proud of it – hysterical cover page and content crammed with every cliché imaginable.
To have three big schemes in Devon to compare is wonderful.
Perhaps in the future there will be smaller projects to consider that have attended to every detail, but recently, the best building completed in Devon is the Roland Levinsky Building. It could be better, but it’s a great place to start. And it has no timber cladding.
Ivan Jordan is an architect who lives and works in Devon. ivan@bsa-exe.co.uk 01392 271173.
If ever you wondered about the vitality, depth and diversity of the Exeter and South West music scene, then you should put on your sexiest black t-shirt and pop along to a Blue Onion Music night – there’s one coming up at the Hub Exeter on August 23.
The last outing of these BOM-ers, at the Hub in July, featured Paddy, Catherine and the Owl, Veil Cassini, Theiff, and Red Paper Dragon. And what you can do is pop along to the BOM site and get a brief low-down of the bands, plus a few choice tracks, so you need never stay in again, but be lured by your favourite local band.
But what is Blue Onion Music all about (for it has many layers, tee hee)? It is a self-proclaimed networking and promotions company for the unsigned generation.
“We offer a place for band and artists to upload and showcase their music, as well a community to interact with other musicians and fans,” they told the PRSD.
From the uploaded material they pick bands and artists for the events they’re asked to sort out the music for.
For you budding band-ites, all you have to do is upload your tunes to the site, and wait for the call…
A David Challice film. If you can explain his argument in under 100 words, you might win a t-shirt.
Our compadres over on D+CFilm are part of a consortium which organises the View From Here film festival in South Devon.
Unfortunately, we’ve come across another View From Here - from UKIP’s own David Challice, whose wild and wacky theorising entertained for ages as we tried to find a logical argument - just when you thought you’d found one, it slipped away into the air, as if it wasn’t there in the first place.
We shall wait with bated breath whether this Challice is served up on the smorgesbord of vidi fun that takes place in South Devon in the first week of December - we’re talking of course about the REAL View From Here.
Watch more of David Challice’s views on his YouTube channel.
If you’re a believer that it’s the journey that counts rather destination, then you could pick up your free map of the Devon Countywide bus services.
The invaluable guide for the remaining pioneers of public transport has details of almost all local bus services and rail routes in the county.
The map, we are told, also includes information about the bus operators serving the area, many of which are under contract to the County Council. However, it does not contain information on services within towns and cities, school or work services.
Copies are available from a number of outlets including tourist information centres, bus company offices, post offices and libraries.
For all timetable enquiries in South West England, call Traveline on 0871 200 22 33. Calls from landlines cost 10p per minute plus network extras.
All DevonBus publications can be ordered from DevonBus on 01392 382800 or by e-mail to devonbus@devon.gov.uk. Further bus information is available at from the bus page on the Devon County Counicl website.
• if you are a public transport person, we’d like to hear from you.
The Plymouth Environment Centre, passed on this info from the city council. “People with a passion for the great outdoors are being invited to join Plymouth’s Local Access Forum; an independent body set up to advise Plymouth City Council on how to help people make the most of the city’s open spaces.
“Members will meet at least quarterly to discuss all aspects of managing public access to open countryside and improving public rights of way and open-air recreation. The forum will also have a wider role in advising other authorities and organisations as well as central government.
“The city council is looking for members to represent the varied views of local people and businesses, landowners and those with related interests such as tourism, outdoor education, sport and recreation, disability awareness, health and cultural heritage.
“Membership is voluntary but expenses will be paid.
For more information or an application pack, visit the Local Access Forum pages of the council’s website at or contact the Public Rights of Way Department on 01752 304233.
The closing date for applications is August 31 and interviews will be held in the week beginning September 8.
The TUC has urged the government to work more closely with employers and unions to start implementing policies that will allow the UK to become a world leader in the new green economy.
The TUC report, A Green and Fair Future: For a Just Transition to a Low Carbon Economy says while countries such as Germany, Denmark and Spain are creating thousands of jobs and billions of pounds in revenue by actively supporting green businesses, the UK is lagging behind. Germany has created a renewable energy sector employing almost half a million people with a turnover of 24 billion euros. In contrast, the UK employs just 7,000 in renewable energy, generating 360 million euros.
The TUC is calling on the government to look to the success of employer-union partnerships in the workplace as a guide for how active collaboration can drive green innovation in the UK and cut carbon emissions.
Original prints by Wassily Kandinsky, the doughty Russian and tub-thumper of the abstract will be at the Brook Gallery in Budleigh Salterton, and the father of abstraction with share the billboard with Exeter-based Patrick Jones.
Patrick will be showing some new etchings and his exploration into printmaking techniques will be the subjects of his talks in the gallery, which will ‘uncover the frustrations of an accomplished artists working with a new medium’. The talks take place on Tuesday July 29 and Friday August 1.
It’s all under the banner of Summer of Abstraction at the Brook Gallery and feature Patrick Jones, to August 26, and Kandinsky to August 26, with the exhibition including major works for sale from Klange published in German in 1913.
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