by Sue Read

A SCHEME to try to sort the very long-term parking problems outside one of Crediton’s primary schools in the morning and afternoon has been given a boost by Crediton Town Council.

At its meeting on Tuesday evening, the council agreed to spend £200 to buy 500 tax discs holders for the school to use.

This happened because Lisa Crocker, one of the town’s PCSOs, had been telling the town clerk, Mrs Claire Dalley, about the “I’m a School Safe Parker” idea she had after there had been several complaints about car parking outside schools.

Her initiative focussed on the school educating the children who, by default, should be able to educate their parents or guardians. At present Landscore School is running a trial.

At the town council meeting Mrs Dalley outlined the plan. There had been a short presentation to pupils about keeping safe and the potential dangers when being delivered and collected at school.

They had been given a card on which to design their own road safety picture which they could take home to put in a free plastic tax disc holder to be displayed in the vehicle used for taking them to school and collecting them again.

Some of the Year Six pupils would be allowed to monitor the area and record any vehicles causing an issue, passing that information to the Police who would send a warning letter.

Letters of explanation had been sent to parents or guardians - the only hold-up was the tax disc holders.

Mrs Crocker believed that if the children could understand about promoting good road safety then the parents would follow.

Mid Devon Community Safety Partnership had offered to pay for the tax disc holders, but there had been difficulties.

Thoroughly approving the idea, the town council agreed to provide 500 tax disc holders printed with the town logo and saying “Provided by Crediton Town Council” at a cost of £200.

It was said that Haywards Primary School might pick up the idea as well, so there should be enough tax discs for both schools.

Later in the meeting Cllr Nick Way, also a Devon County and Mid Devon District Councillor, reported that the district council “had relented” as regards parking issues at Landscore School and had agreed to special permits for parents to park for a short time at the St Saviours Way car park to be able to walk their children to and from the school.

OBJECT TO PLAN

Because it felt the proposed pedestrian links for the housing development at Wellparks were so poor, councillors objected to the revised planning application for the new homes. Outline approval has been given.

Cllr Mrs Liz Brookes-Hocking was disappointed that the town council’s recommendations for pedestrian links had not been taken on board.

She felt the application was lacking in detail. Nor could she find any mention of where pedestrians might cross the road to get to the railway station or anywhere else.

Cllr Nick Way understood that the developers wanted to begin building before putting in pedestrian crossing places which he had felt was the wrong way round.

Town council was objecting because of the “non-existent” connections with local services for pedestrians.

PEDLARSPOOL

There was also the outline application to build up to 326 homes on 8.6 ha of land at Pedlarspool.

There was no discussion on this, although much had been said at previous meetings when this was on the agenda.

All were in favour of a No Objection comment to the district council, the authority that determines planning applications. Strictly speaking, this site was outside the Crediton Town Council area.

PARKING IDEA

An idea to try to find more car parking space was floated by Cllr Mike Szabo when he suggested using where The Bike Shed is now.

He explained that with The Bike Shed owner acquiring another property, that site could provide resident’s parking, thus freeing up space on the roadside.

It was thought the site was allocated for building in the Local Plan but council chairman, Cllr Frank Letch, said that did not stop other ideas coming forward.

Cllr Szabo was charged with discussing this with The Bike Shed owner and reporting back to the town council.

PLANNING

Approval was recommended for two of the 12 planning applications before the town council.

One was for Listed Building Consent for replacement glazing and repairs to a door and windows at 1 Mews Cottages, North Street.

The other was an application to re-grade the garden area to improve access and parking plus landscaping improvements at Trenavin, George Hill.

The town council lodged no objections to: formation of hand-standing to park a vehicle following removal of a wall and putting up a wall and fence at 8 Deep Lane. There had been some discussion on this with councillors observing that a lot of the parking problems on Deep Lane were commuter parking, which did not help residents.

Retention of domestic workshop at 57 High Street.

Certificate of lawfulness for the existing use of a dwelling for more than 10 years at Arden House, Union Road.

Erection of single-storey rear extension and conversion of the garage to ancillary accommodation at 30 Primrose Way.

Formation of home delivery facility at Tesco on Joseph Locke Way.

Erection of extension to an existing workshop and cover over the loading bay at Keith Hoskins, Marsh Lane, Lords Meadow Industrial Estate.

For the two applications involving trees, councillors had no objection so long as the district council Tree Officer felt the work was necessary.

These were to remove one ash at 6 Courtis Gardens and to reduce the height of one beech tree by five metres at 2 The Maltings. Both are in the Conservation Area.