THE July 1 meeting of Newton St Cyres Parish Council was held in the Parish Hall.

It was attended by eight Councillors, the Parish Clerk, local County Councillor, Mrs Margaret Squires, as well as by Sue Rowell, local climate change co-ordinator and three members of the public.

Climate Change

• Sue Dowell presented the Parish Council with a draft Climate Change Policy and a draft checklist for planning applications.

These were accepted by the Council and can be found on the Parish Council website.

The checklist is designed to help the council evaluate planning applications considering climate change issues.

It was suggested that members of the public may wish to read through the checklist before submitting applications so that they too can take on board the issues.

• The Parish Council agreed to sign up to Devon County Council’s Climate Emergency Declaration. This will help the council to set some targets and give a time scale.

• Sue spoke about the work of The Newton Environment and Wellbeing Group.

The group is currently looking at a project to reduce food waste from supermarkets by offering "end of date" food free to parishioners.

In addition, they hope to conduct a survey to identify areas around the village of particularly ecological significance to the villagers.

• Sue is also setting up "Zoom" training sessions for Councillors to help them identify key issues where the Council could act.

School Hill Issues

• The Council is very grateful that the Quicke family has responded positively to the petition about the school footpath.

Currently it should only be used by children and their accompanying parent to get to and from school.

It will now become open to all members of the public on foot, or who need mobility aids.

However, it remains a permissive path and not a right of way. In addition, dogs are not permitted, even if on a lead. The council accepted responsibility for the repairs required and new signage.

• Despite several applications to Devon County Council, the footpath beside the A377 has not been cleared, even though the maintenance of this path is DCC’s statutory responsibility.

With the lush summer growth, the situation has become worse. It was agreed that the Parish Clerk would write a final letter, giving a deadline for a response before volunteers within the village could be approached about taking on the work and charging DCC for the equipment hire/materials required.

Traffic through Langford

• Despite some parishioners making a presentation to East Devon planning committee, and a large petition, the digestate lagoon application has been approved.

• An application for a traffic restriction order, preventing heavy trucks passing through Langford, was turned down. The Parish Council asked if it could make a presentation to the Highways and Traffic Orders Committee of DCC, demonstrating the need for a traffic order. However, to do this required the support of the County Councillor. Cllr Squires didn’t feel it was appropriate and so we are unable to make a presentation.

• The only route of communication open to local residents now is a complaint via the local government ombudsman. However, complaints can only be made by individuals and not the Council. Several Langford residents are submitting complaints.

Other Council Business

• It is confirmed that the pavement by the entrance to Tytheing Close and the Old School has already been lowered to allow easier crossing of the A377.

• A request has been made that the permissive footpath linking Court Orchard to Tytheing Close be cleared. This has been passed on to the Quicke Family.

• Allotments – it was agreed that the old shed containing asbestos should be removed from the site using appropriate contractors. Several of the very overgrown plots will also be cleared in the hope that they can be let more easily. This month saw two new allotment holders.

• The Parish Council decided to collect data on incidents of dangerous driving on the A377 by asking parishioners to report incidents they have seen. The report could be made through the Council website, the Facebook page or directly to the Parish Clerk.

The only information required would be the date of the incident, the type of vehicle involved, the location and a brief description of what happened.

The next meeting of the Parish Council will be in the Parish Hall on Thursday, September 2, 2021 at 7pm. Members of the public are welcome to attend. Alternatively, they can contact councillors in the usual ways including at the monthly Parish Hall coffee mornings, which will resume over the summer.

Liz Ouldridge