THIS month I am combining May’s and June’s Council meetings.

I was elected Chair for another year with John Dean as Vice Chair. We reviewed finances and set up a timetable for reviewing policies and risk assessments. These can be found on the Council website.

The roles of the Councillors were allocated as follows:

Cllr Jock Campbell – Development and Planning; Cllr John Dean – Vice Chair, Travel and Road Safety including the Boniface Trail; Cllr Donna Harris – Environment and Climate, allotments, maintenance of green spaces, liaison with NEW; Cllr Monika Herpoldt-Bright – Partnership and Volunteering including Litter Pickers and Neighbourhood Watch; Monitoring of Parish assets such as notice boards etc. Liaison with Parish Hall and Britain in Boom; Cllr Imogen Marshall – Footpath Warden, Liaison with Church.

Cllr Liz Ouldridge – Chair, Emergency and Resilience including snow and flood wardens. Liaison with Arboretum, responsible for this newsletter; Cllr Jocelyne Rimbon-Whittaker – Partnership and Volunteering, maintaining links with the wider parish community, liaison with the School and Cllr Russell Viner - Emergency and Resilience including snow and flood wardens and the defibrillators. Liaison with the Recreation Ground.

In June we continued the work started in May. In addition, DCC Cllr Steve Keable gave us an update on planning. Mid Devon is forming a new local plan. This will determine the number and distribution of houses to be built in our area.

Although Mid Devon will not be putting this plan into place, they hope that producing a sensible plan before local government reorganisation, they will be able to influence the provision of housing for the next 20 years.

They need to do this quickly but they also need public consultation to take place. One consultation is currently happening. You can find out more and give your views by going on this website: https://letstalk.middevon.gov.uk/plan-mid-devon

We have to be realistic and expect to see more housing in our village. This is partly because the government is requiring a lot more homes to be built in Mid Devon, but also our Railway Station makes our village a very attractive site. So do express your views.

Cllr Jocelyne Rimbon-Whittaker spoke about her liaison with local farmers. She reminded us all that with the increasing good weather we will all be about and about more in the countryside, and that we need to be mindful of closing farm gates and keeping our dogs under control.

We have some good news on Station Road. The Parish Council, and the School have been campaigning for some time for simple safety steps to protect children going in and out of the school. It seems likely we will get ‘school’ road signs fairly shortly and other measures are now seriously under discussion.

The potholes on Tytheing Close are getting ever bigger. They are too big for our road wardens to fill and Cllr John Dean is working hard to get Mid Devon to take action.

Our next meeting is on July 2 at 7pm in the Parish Hall.

Liz Ouldridge

Chair, Newton St Cyres Parish Council