People's Republic of South Devon » Torbay

Bid to save Torbay library opening hours

PRSD — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:00:57 +0000

Torbay Labour's Cllr Cowell with Torquay Library user.

Torbay Labour Party is supporting efforts to keep library opening hours as they are. As part of the cuts being introduced by The Bay’s Tory mayor, there are plans to reduce opening hours.

The Bay’s Labour chairman, Cllr Darren Cowell is to move an amendment at this week’s budget meeting calling for £63,000 to be put back in to the library budget.

Cllr Cowell said: “The library service took a big hit last year and it is being asked to cut £170,000 this year also. I visited Torquay and Paignton Libraries on Saturday as part of National Libraries Day – I couldn’t visit Brixham and Churston as they close at 1pm. I was delighted to have met with the Friends groups who discussed the wide range of services on offer.

“Libraries are not just about books anymore. There are a wide range of services on offer and it’s nothing short of a scandal to cut the opening hours. Paignton is a brand new £6m facility and we are talking about closing it on a weekday afternoon.

“It may be true that there are fewer visitors to libraries after 5pm, but many of the people who take advantage of a late evening are those unable to visit at other times.

“I am urging the reinstatement of this money to enable the review that is currently being undertaken to report and to allow the Library Service, Friends groups and other bodies to look at new ways of working.

“Torbay currently has one of the worst provisions for library hours in the country, this cut will make it even worse.”

Jack Critchlow, acting Chair of the Friends of Torquay Library, said “We were delighted that Councillor Darren Cowell was able to join us at Torquay Library to celebrate National Library Day. He chatted with library users who left him in no doubt as to what they thought of council plans to cut the budget and hours.

Mr Critchlow added, “All of our libraries do a fantastic job and it would be outrageous if for some reason they were not able to continue to do so.”

The motion has the support of the Non Coalition Group and will be seconded by Cllr Vic Ellery at the council’s budget meeting on Wednesday, February 8 at 5:30pm, Oldway.

(from a press release)

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The night sky: Venus, Jupiter and Mars

David Love — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:35:31 +0000

Jupiter: Canary Island 2 High Mag, Nov 5, 2011 22:37:43 UTC, taken by Simon Harding

The planet Venus is still very prominent in the western sky for a few hours after sunset, and is the brightest object in the night sky after the Moon. It will continue to move slowly further away from the setting Sun during the month of February. On February 25, it will be very close to the crescent Moon, and will be a glorious sight.

Through a telescope, Venus shows phases, just like the phases of the Moon that we can see without a telescope. The first person ever to see these phases was the 17th century astronomer Galileo, who was one of the first people ever to use a telescope to view the night sky. He realised that he could deduce from these phases that Venus must orbit round the Sun. He also became convinced that (contrary to the beliefs of the time) the Earth must also orbit round the Sun – which got him into terrible trouble with the Roman Catholic Church!

The planet Jupiter will continue to be prominent in the southern and western sky throughout February. It is only a little less bright than Venus, and Venus will move steadily closer and closer to Jupiter as the month progresses. Good binoculars or a small telescope will show the four largest of Jupiter’s moons, first discovered by Galileo in 1609. A larger telescope will show the belts of Jupiter, gigantic weather systems that encircle the planet. (The photograph of Jupiter shown here was taken by the Torbay astrophotographer Simon Harding, using a remote telescope in the Canary Islands.)

By the end of the month, Mars will be rising in the western sky, just below the constellation of Leo the Lion. Mars remains a fascinating object, not least because it is possible that primitive bacterial life exists just below the planet’s surface. It may be that within the next decade or two we shall know whether or not this is the case.

The Torbay Astronomical Society will be meeting twice this month, at Torquay Boys’ Grammar School in Shiphay Manor Drive, starting at 7.30pm. The first meeting, on Thursday 9 February, will be an observational evening that will make use of the large telescope at the school. Then on Thursday, February 23 we shall be welcoming Chris Lee (from SciSys UK Ltd), who will be talking about The UK’s role in Mars Exploration.

Visitors and new members are always welcome. There is a £3 charge for visitors to the lecture evenings, and a £2 charge for the observational evenings. Annual membership is a mere £15.

I shall be giving my lecture on The Origin of the Universe at the Torquay Museum Society in Babbacombe Road on Monday, February 20 at 2.30pm. Visitors are always welcome to Museum lectures, but a donation of £3 is requested for entry.

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Shared ownership highlighted as an affordable housing solution

PRSD — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:00:27 +0000

An event at Westminster will promote shared ownership schemes for affordable housing

South West MPs and housing experts from across the region are meeting for a Tea at Westminster event to raise the profile of affordable home ownership options such as shared ownership, and ensure the region’s politicians are aware of its role as part of the solution to the current housing crisis.

Over the last 10 years house prices have risen three times faster than incomes in the South West region and now stand at almost 12 times local incomes. With reduced mortgage availability and the need for huge deposits, more and more average and lower income earners are being priced out of the market.

Government projections suggest the number of households in the South West will increase by 30% by 2033, and National Housing Federation research predicts home ownership levels in the region will slump to just 65.9% over the next decade – the lowest level since the early 1980s.

There are currently over 6,000 people in the South West actively seeking to buy an affordable shared ownership home, but the supply of shared ownership properties just can’t keep up.

The Federation has recently called for government to invest £1bn nationally in building shared ownership over the next three years.

The afternoon tea event takes the theme of ‘supporting aspiration in an age of austerity’. Ten of the region’s MPs are due to attend, including Torbay’s own Adrian Sanders.

South West lead manager for the National Housing Federation, Jenny Allen said: “We welcome the government’s recognition in the housing strategy of the huge economic and social value that housing investment brings. However, the government needs to be bolder, going further to fix the broken housing market and taking decisive actions to radically increase housing supply.

“There is clearly huge demand for affordable home ownership schemes in the South West and we believe that greater government investment in shared ownership would not only represent an enormous boost to first-time buyers who are able to sustain home ownership but unable to raise a deposit, but would also help support and sustain a faster economic recovery.”

(from a press release)

(image: Some rights reserved by Images_of_Money)

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The Coalition is creating a political Police Force

Patrick Canavan — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:55:25 +0000

Political tinkering is undermining the independence of the police force

The announcement that Stephen Otter is to stand down as Chief Constable for Devon and Cornwall is sad news. While I wish him well in his new post I can’t help reflecting on the situation regarding his replacement.

It would appear that the Police Authority has been instructed by the Government not to fill the vacancy. The reason for this seems to be that there will be elections for a new Police and Crime Commissioner in November. This could possibly lead to a delay of up to a year in getting a permanent replacement.

This Government directive is just one element in their apparent willingness to interfere in Policing. Their decision over cuts to Police budgets ran roughshod over the discussions that had previously taken place with the Police Federation over streamlining the Force.

The decision by this Government to introduce elected Police and Crime Commissioners was seriously flawed. I simply do not understand how giving one individual so much power is somehow more democratic or makes the Police Force more accountable than the existing Police Authority structure.

There is much discussion about whether these new posts will make Policing political. The reality is that, thanks to this Government, it already is. The Conservatives have form. Not long after the election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London he intervened to force the resignation of the then Commisioner of the Metropolitan Police for what were purely political reasons. There must therefore be a question mark over whether their candidates for these new roles will want to follow this example.

The legislation to introduce these posts was only possible because of the support of the Liberal Democrats within the Coalition. They have said that they will “not actively contest” these elections because they feel this make the role political. I would have more sympathy with this view had they not supported the legislation in the first place. Whether they will stand a candidate in Devon and Cornwall is not at all clear.

For the sake of completeness I am in a position to confirm that there will definitely be a Labour Party candidate in these elections. Not that those of us who are members support the role but because we are determined to highlight the effect that the policies of this Government are having on our Police Force.

There has traditionally been a very clear distinction between political policy making and the operational independence of professional Police Officers. That independence has already been blurred. We have to stop the distinction disappearing altogether. Voters will have their chance to help us achieve this on November 15 this year.

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Time for politicians to stand up for the region’s unemployed

PRSD — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:26:06 +0000

Torbay has more than a quarter of all households are affected by unemployment

It is high time that the region’s politicians at local, national and EU level started standing up for the people who elected them and demanded a change of approach and stop the public sector job cuts in the pipeline, says the GMB.

There were 10,800 households in Torbay that had no individuals aged 16 and over in employment, out of a total number of household of 42,900. That is 25.2% of all households that include at least one person aged 16 to 64 of working age in Torbay.

For the South West as a whole there were 277,100 households in the region that had no individuals aged 16 and over in employment out of a total number of household of 1,664,500. That is 16.6% of all households that include at least one person aged 16 to 64 of working age in the region.

For the UK as a whole there were 3.9 million households that had no individuals aged 16 and over in employment out of a total number of household of 20.5 million. That is 18.9% of all households that include at least one person aged 16 to 64 of working age in the UK.

These figures come from a new analysis by GMB of the Annual Population Survey data on households by combined economic activity status January-December 2010 from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published just before Christmas 2011.

After the Torbay, for households without work in the region, was Cornwall 22.1%, Plymouth 19.8%, Somerset 19.0%, Dorset 17.3%, Bournemouth 16.9%, Bath & North East Somerset 16.8%, Bristol 16.8%, Devon 16.7% and North Somerset 16.2%. The figures for all 15 areas in the region are set out in the table below. South Gloucestershire has the lowest percentage of households without work at 12.2%.

(from a press release)

(image: Some rights reserved by TomGough)

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100 years of Torbay Trades Union Council celebrated

PRSD — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 08:00:45 +0000

Torbay Trades Union Council is celebrating 100 years

The South West TUC Regional Council is heading for Torquay for its meeting on Saturday, January 7 to help mark the 100th Birthday of Torbay Trades Union Council.

Nigel Costley, of the South West TUC Regional Council, said: “Many of the Trades Councils around the South West can trace their roots back over 100 years. They have been bring union reps together at local level ever since.

“Trades Union Councils foster local debate and bolster solidarity between union activists. Their campaigning role is needed as much as it was when Torbay Trades Council was born 100 years ago.”

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Torbay Inter-Faith Forum: Working for mutual understanding in Torbay

Kevin Dixon — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:00:55 +0000

Torbay Inter-Faith Forum encouraging a greater appreciation of the rich diversity of The Bay and our wider society

Torbay Inter-Faith Forum brings together people who are interested in learning more about the beliefs and practises of those who live in our three towns. The forum aims to foster greater understanding and friendship between people from different faiths and belief systems, and to encourage among the general public a greater appreciation of the rich diversity of The Bay and our wider society.

One of the oldest in the country, having been formed around 20 years ago, Torbay Inter-Faith Forum aims to unite representatives of faiths and of no faith throughout The Bay on a basis of equality, with no tradition having primacy or a ‘leadership’ role. The current committee includes representatives from the Anglican, Baha’i, Methodist, Quaker, Moslem, and Humanist traditions.

Inter-faith and belief dialogue allows us to encounter people from all of the communities in Torbay. We began by building a community among ourselves, hoping that this would be a first step toward some greater achievement, to move beyond tolerance of differences to appreciation of the cultures of our three towns.

The next meeting of Torbay Inter-Faith is an Open Forum at the Friends Meeting House, 48 Tor Hill Rd Torquay on Wednesday, January 11 at 7.30pm. The topic is God or no God, introduced by Minister Margaret Preece.

On Wednesday, February 8, we will be discussing Science and Religion with speaker Rev Ian Bylde.

On Wednesday, March 14 Dr Kevin Dixon will lead a discussion on The Problem of Evil: Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.

On Wednesday, April 11 there will be a youth evening with a DVD, introduced by Heather Savini and Friends.

People of faith and of no faith are welcome to join us at these Open Forums.

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Four radical Tory ideas for 2012

Nick Bonstow — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 09:11:14 +0000

Part of Torquay's green belt, which are proposed to be done away with in Nick Bonstow's radical Tory plans for 2012

2011 has been a year of steadying the ship. 2012 should be a year of radical reform. Far from hovering over the brake peddle, Cameron should place his foot firmly on the accelerator.

Reforms to planning, taxation, welfare, and education while encouraging need to be bolstered. A new narrative should be forged of not just a modernising but a radical government.

A government determined to hand power, money and opportunity back to the people, mainly through taxing less, spending less and deciding less. Allowing communities and individual to do more, spend more and decide more.

Below, I outline four radical reforms the government could undertake to achieve this:

1. Abolish the Green Belt
Key Fact: Still over 80% of British land is used for crops, grazing, forestry and other agricultural uses.

The battle against the green freaks is being aptly fought. From casting out the bossy, top-down ‘brown-field first’ rule, to the ruthless simplification of the 1,000 pages of central planning regulations down to just 52 the ministers responsible – Grant Shapps and Greg Clark haven’t done a bad job.

In 2012, though the mother of all damaging rules must be abolished. The green belt simply has to go.

This may seem radical, since it is viewed as the holy grail of Britishness. In the eyes of the middle classes the only thing stopping the evil capitalists from grabbing their precious green fields. Or the last remaining weapon in the fight against that dreaded ‘urban sprawl’.

In reality though the green belt is merely an overly-simplistic club used by regional strategists to beat out prospects of development. This club, in the most simplistic and rudimentary fashion traps millions of hectares of perfectly good British land in the ultimate Bermuda triangle of planning regulations.

It isn’t like ‘green fields’ are an endangered species, they still constitute well over 80% of Britain. Instead, as a regulatory tool the Green Belt acts like a comforting blanket in the minds of the few. To the many though who have the misfortune to live in areas covered by this psychological blanket development is skewed, house prices rocket, travel problems arise and labour market headaches appear. Simply locking up vast amounts of land and throwing away the key does not work, and should be abolished.

2. Large Tax Cuts – Abolish Capital Gains & Inheritance Taxes
Key Fact: Britain has fallen from the fourth most competitive economy in the world for the extent & effect of taxation in 1997, to 84th in 2010.

Britain has become, especially compared with our position as a leading free-market economy, uncompetitive when it comes to taxation.

Moves are being made to address this – increasing the income tax threshold to £10,000 and staggered cuts in corporation tax are helpful. Even more radical action on taxation is needed.

With these four measures: holding International Development spending at £5 billion over this Parliament (£12.7bn); holding International Development capital spending at £1.4 billion (£1.3bn); freezing education spending at 2011/12 levels (£5.3bn); and finally doubling the speed of the spending cuts to the department for (or under Vince Cable against) Business, Innovation and Skills (£4.05bn)

As a country we could take a significant leap forward in restoring our Thatcherite tax competitiveness. First by abolishing capital gains taxes. Capital gains taxes are charged on the profits of property, shares and other investments. In the United States while many presidential candidates talk of abolition, the Lib Dems are pushing forward a steep increase in the tax. Abolition would see the City of London revive its corporate profits, bringing jobs, investment and tax revenue flooding into the economy.

Second, let’s do away one of the most immoral taxes of all – inheritance taxes. This will send out a simple message. If you save for the future, are financially responsible and wish to leave, therefore, the remnants of your personal financial responsibility to your children the exchequer will not penalise you.

3. Devolve Welfare to create ‘Neighbourhood Welfare’
Key Fact: If we were to divide our social security budget between the bottom 10,000,000 families, we could give them ￡14,000 each.

Welfare has spiralled out of control. Everyone knows it. Money supposed to end up in the pockets of our poorest citizens reverberates around a national bureaucracy whose sole goal is self-preservation.

Welfare is no longer about genuinely providing the poorest with a British standard of living but instead about maintaining graphs on the annual budget which provide the illusion of ‘progressivism’.

While the Coalition has been doing some good with schemes such as the Universal Credit the only way to truly break this apparatus is to abolish it. In 1996 Bill Clinton did the same, with welfare being simply devolved.

In the UK welfare was localised for centuries, with the justification that it is better for taxpayers in Torbay to pay for the alleviation of the poor say within Devon as well as that apparatus placed on a local or county level would be best able to decide the welfare priorities in that area.

For those who say this will encourage councils to set terrible welfare budgets, therefore shifting their recipients onto their neighbours welfare bill – if we are allowing councils the ability to freely set social service provision (without negative effects), why can’t we do the same for welfare?

I propose that our social security budget should be split up into block grants, handed to county councils, cities or partnerships of unitary authorities to decide the eligibility, the welfare payment for each eligibility and the mechanism for distribution – be it through state or non-state agents. Local discretion will see best practice spread, the large bureaucracy defeated and involvement of non-state agents encouraged.

4. Supercharge School Freedom: Abolish Department for Education
Key Fact: Fewer than half of those sitting GCSEs in English and Maths gained grades higher than a D.

Schools reforms are coming along nicely. The academies programme, which is itself a supercharged version of Blair’s original reforms is designed in part to sweep away local authority meddling from the schools system, handing parents and teachers control of schools.

In 2012 I’d propose that Michael Gove should go the full distance, why stop at liberating schools from the clutches of the local authority? The Department for Education should be abolished.

There is nothing that the Department for Education actually does that couldn’t been done more effectively by either local communities, individual schools or occasionally other departments. Central government should stop creating teaching and administrative policies on behalf of schools. Parents should be handed the grants currently distributed by local authorities and government based on a parental voucher system used in Sweden.

Just as education can’t just be left to one style of state controlled producer, so education can’t just be left to one style of producer freed from a portion of state control. All of tertiary concerns of the department should be split up to provide them with a new focus. Skills and further education should join full-time the Business Department. Children and families on the other hand should join Work and Pensions. Most importantly abolishing the department would create a fresher sense of plurality, competition, freedom and parent power which would ultimately boost school quality.

(image: Path and steps above Heron Way, Torquay. The path on the right runs all along the upper edge of The Willows development, Torquay, through the narrow sliver of green belt separating the estate from the adjacent lanes. © Copyright Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.)

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Striking teachers are the shame of Britain, says Torbay Tory student

Nick Bonstow — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:08:50 +0000

The NUT on strike on November 30, 2011, over changes to their pension, which would see them pay more, work longer and receive less

Life’s difficult. The real learning difficulty in the striking teachers’ minds is simply the requirement to get over it. In an age where debt, deficits and general disasters populate our news agenda; an age where child poverty is rising; where one in five young people are unemployed and violent crime is up 77% since 1997, Britain is facing two crises – a broken society and a broken economy.

It is a time to come together in the national interest, and to the take the pain. In fact the number of strikes in the private sector has fallen from 135 in the year 2000, when the economy was sailing smoothly, to just 61 in the rocky year of 2009.

What was happening to our teachers at the time? In 2009, while the private sector was being strangled by a credit crunch, business was positively booming for our public sector teachers. In fact, with Ed Balls at the helm, education spending rose by £5bn. Meanwhile for builders in the private sector house prices fell by 20%, the index of manufacturing fell by 14% and GDP was in sharp decline. Did we hear the cries for strikes, purposeful chaos and mass disruption like we’ve heard from the loony left of the trade union movement? No. These hard-working British men and women wouldn’t dream of it.

Most of Britain, faced with these tough times put its head down and got to work. Struggling through hard times, accepting less business and lower living standards. The public sectors workers, of which our teachers belong, took the very low road.

Public sector workers on the whole are over-paid and over-pensioned. But, arguments as to whether or not teachers deserve maintained pension arrangements are different. Private sector workers do not deserve lower living standards and declining employment prospects. Young people do not deserve very high youth unemployment. Householders do not deserve to see house prices falling away. Public sector workers do not deserve to work in an organisation of which Labour trashed the finances of.

The question is not whether or not teachers, or anyone deserves lower living standards, lower pensions or tough times. It is how do you deal with it.

Teachers are horribly misled for going on strike. Why didn’t the vast majority of Britain make use of the attention seeking, disruptive and petulant behaviour teachers did? Simply because they aren’t led by loony left-wing union bosses. Whipping them into an unpatriotic, silly fervour with ridiculous arguments that somehow by walking out, causing widespread chaos and following their far-left wing rhetoric the Coalition government is going to embark upon a quick U-turn. We all know that to be false – if only the teachers realised that the only positive effect their strike has had is upon the egos of the mini-Chairman Maos heading up the trade unions.

Quite simply, while the rest of Britain deals with tough times gracefully, our teachers following their insane union leaders turned themselves into the shame of Britain. The only ones who have genuinely benefited are the union leaders like Bob Crow, Dave Prentis and Christine Blower who now find themselves not only maintaining huge pay packets but with even bigger far-left egos.

It’s time the teachers manned up, broke free from this disgraceful behaviour and joined the rest of us on planet Earth.

(image: Some rights reserved by DulcieLee)

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Paignton hears about tough decisions on services

Kevin Dixon — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 10:31:00 +0000

Tough Decisions – Your Services: Chair Anne Mattock, Anthony Farnsworth, chief executive Torbay Care Trust and Caroline Taylor, deputy chief executive Torbay Council at the Park Hotel, Paignton

Rotten weather didn’t stop residents turning out to Have Their Say at Paignton’s Park Hotel on Thursday, December 8. Organised by Torbay LINK and Speaking Out In Torbay, the meeting was held to raise awareness of what a 28% cut in government funding will mean for The Bay over the next four years.

Caroline Taylor, deputy chief executive Torbay Council was joined by Anthony Farnsworth, chief executive Torbay Care Trust, as she presented Tough Decisions – Your Services.

Caroline’s message was: “We have no choice – further cuts will need to be made – we have to balance our books, or we will be working illegally.”

Anthony was able to reassure some by adding: “Health Service providers have been slightly more fortunate… Thankfully, at the moment we do not have to make the huge savings that local councils are being asked to, but due to local democratic growth in Torbay – for example 48% of people aged 85+ needing social care – we will have to consider how to make future savings in the adult social care services we provide and commission.”

A full council meeting is now being held at Oldway when the draft budget proposals will be discussed. The mayor will recommend the provisional spending targets for the council for 2012/2013.

Each of the council’s commissioners will prepare a report setting out the implications of those targets. These reports will be released for further formal public consultation, the outcome of which will be considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Board in January 2012.

The Overview and Scrutiny Board will decide what comments and recommendations to make to the mayor and executive on the budget proposals. These will then be considered at the council meeting on February 1, 2012.

The mayor will make his final recommendations on the budget for next year to the Council meeting on February 1 2012. This meeting will adjourn until February 8 2012 to let all members of the council consider the proposals.

The council will meet again on February 8 2012 to discuss the budget and if the proposed budget is approved by a majority of members then it will be adopted on the night. If an objection or amendment to the budget is proposed and approved by a majority of members, the council will adjourn again until March 1 2012 when a final decision will be made. Any objections or amendments will be considered by the mayor at the council meeting on March 1 2012.

The Council Tax will be set at the council meeting on March 1 2012 and not before as the council has to wait for notifications from other authorities (eg Fire, Police etc.) before setting the final overall Council Tax for Torbay.

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South Devon Link Road: ‘the biggest single act of environmental vandalism perpetrated against the County of Devon since the Luftwaffe visited Plymouth’

PRSD — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 11:21:13 +0000

South Devon Link Road – possibly not the answer people claim it to be

With the news that the South Devon Link Road is to get the go-ahead, a Lib Dem Councillor has expressed his concern for the impact on South Devon.

Lib Dem councillor Gordon Hook, who represents the Newton Abbot wards of Buckland and Milber has suggested the decision for the go-ahead for the South Devon Link Road is a ‘Black Day for Newton Abbot’.

On his website Gordon says: “It will give the ‘green light’ (no sick joke intended) to the development and in filling of the Aller Valley / hillside opposite Aller Park Road. This, coupled to other proposals in the Teignbridge Core Strategy will see an irrevocable change in both the character of Newton Abbot and also an end to the green lung which separates Newton from Kingskerswell.”

He is also skeptical about the solution a flyover will offer – instead the traffic jam, into Torbay which the link road is intended to ease, will be pushed elsewhere on the road network.

He says: “I wanted to see other alternatives to road building to solve this issue… and still want to see greater investment in decent public transport / park and ride/walk schemes/ investment in electric (and other non fossil fuel) vehicles.

“No one currently knows when the scheme will start, but take a good look at the green fields between Kingskerswell and Newton… they won’t be there much longer. This could yet turn out to be the biggest single act of environmental vandalism perpetrated against the County of Devon since the Luftwaffe visited Plymouth.”

Meanwhile Torbay Labour have voiced their support for the plans

Read Gordon’s full post on his site.

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Torbay Labour welcomes link road news

PRSD — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:39:04 +0000

After 50 years, Torbay Labour has welcomed news of the South Devon Link Road

Torbay Labour Party has welcomed the news that after 50 years of waiting a link road will be built to Torbay.

Torbay Labour chairman, Councillor Darren Cowell, said: “It really is superb news that at long last the road will be built. It was on the priority list of the last Labour Government and regrettably was only on a ‘B’ list after the Tory-Led coalition election. But common sense has prevailed and we must all celebrate this news.

“We acknowledge the way in which the business community has come together to raise the economic case for this life line to Torbay and South Devon. We would also like to recognise the dedication and hard work of the many council officers at both Torbay and Devon County Councils.

“The road will play a vital part in the economic regeneration of what is a seriously failing local economy. Torbay has high unemployment, especially among 16-24 year olds, low wages and relies too heavily on the public sector and tourism for jobs.

Cllr Cowell said: “As good as the news is today, we must make sure we are planning for immediate economic regeneration, Torbay cannot afford to wait until the road opens in four years time.

“Torbay Labour Party has been voicing its’ concerns at the lack of a clear economic regeneration plan for The Bay from the current Tory council and the mayor.

“It is essential that a new LABV partner can be announced and works swiftly to catch up on the lost time following the withdrawal of McAlpine.

“Torbay can send a clear and loud message to inward investors that we are open for business if we get on with developments such as Torwood Street, Palm Court and the marina car park. My fear is that the dilly-dallying of the Mayor on the Prom proposals sends out the wrong message.

“We have to press ahead with the White Rock Business Park, the grand signage to the site is all that exists (apart from a new hotel). Let us get on with this scheme and quickly identify other project that can be implemented swiftly by Torbay Development Agency.

“The TDA has made some good progress, especially with the Innovation Centres, and now needs to be given the remit to build upon those successes.”

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