Great Torrington Town Council

At the start of another new year we thought it might be helpful to give a reminder regarding which tier of Council is responsible for main services within the community of Great Torrington.  We hope you find the below information helpful.

Devon County Council is responsible for the following services;

Education and schools, Highways including potholes, tourism signs, gritting, social services, child protection, libraries, recycling centres, waste management, and trading standards. Your local County Councillor is Andrew Saywell.

Torridge District Council is responsible for the following services;

Rubbish collection and recycling, council tax administration and collection, housing, planning applications, car parks, electoral services, sport and leisure, housing benefit and council tax support, business rates administration and collection, environmental protection, economic development, street cleaning, fly tipping and licensing. Local District Councillors are Cllrs Chris Bright, Margaret Brown, and Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin.  All of these District Councillors are also Town Councillors.

Great Torrington Town Council (GTTC)

GTTC is responsible for grass and hedge cutting, town maintenance, including benches, bus shelters, and the town clock. Acting as consultees for Planning matters, maintenance of GTTC owned parks (Trafalgar Drive, Greenbank and Jubilee Close), and facilitating and participating in working groups for the benefit of the community, (for example, “The Marketing Working Group” and the “Dementia Friendly Community working groups), receiving applications and awarding grants to local organisations, lobbying where appropriate, managing allotments, providing Christmas lights and bunting, events organising, footpaths and verge maintenance under contract, providing Snow and Road Wardens, overseeing Jubilee Wood/Meadow and statutory issues in relation to administration and finance of a Town Council.

GTTC endeavours to work with the above authorities, voluntary groups and individuals where possible when the outcome is for the benefit to the community of Great Torrington. Examples of these collaborations over the past 12 months include working with Devon County Council on an ongoing  project to improve signage. Working with Torridge District Council on “opening up the town centre post lockdown. Working with local volunteers from the community at Jubilee Wood, and community through the GTTC Covid19 support group. The list goes on, but Members are keen to be involved in local matters which do actually, “make a difference” to the town in one way or another.

In more normal times, the Mayor also represents the Town and attends a large number of events throughout the year and endeavours to keep good relations with our local neighbours as well as serve those within the community as and when possible.

A list of Town Councillors is held on the Town Council’s website along with contact details.  There is also a list in the Notice Board at GTTC offices, Castle Hill.

Despite the restrictions we lived with last year, volunteers continued to be busy at Jubilee Wood. As we headed towards autumn, we saw the installation of a new land drain at the Stonemans Lane gateway so to accommodate more of the water coming down the hill when there is heavy rain. This should now help prevent the path and steps being washed away and reduce the amount of mud at that point. In addition, gravel was put down to help stabilise the path. Monitoring of this situation will be continued.

There were struggles cutting the grass due to inclement weather conditions which may mean that the longer grass will hinder the growth of flowering plants. The team has tried to rake out the thatch and sow seed, but we are not sure how effective it will be. We are hoping to have success at the School Lane end as we managed to strim the long grass there.

Volunteers have sowed the wildflower seed into pans and will plant out the resulting individual seedlings during this year.

The Town Council Technicians cut the grass triangle in the middle of the site and as a result the team was able to plant out approx. 80 “Bluecoats” trees. We are hoping to invite the Bluecoat School down next year to “adopt” the area – and maybe plant a few additional trees. It was lovely to have more people offer to help plant out these trees, which widens community involvement.

Ground has also been levelled for a new pathway to the first bench we hope to install in the New Year.

Alan Williams managed to secure plants from the Woodland Trust so we will see more trees and shrubs being planted in 2021.  In addition, we are looking to improve footpaths, including addition of steps to improve accessibility and have an ongoing programme of sowing and planting wild flowers to improve biodiversity and make the meadow more attractive.

During last year we estimate approximately 200 hours of volunteering took place at Jubilee Wood and the Town Council would like to say big thank you to Alan and his team of volunteers for all they have done and continue to at Jubilee Wood.

Please note that all of this work has been done in accordance with Covid19 precautions.

A trial to boost re-use of electrical items is taking place at five Household Waste Recycling Centres across Devon.

The project, funded by the electricals industry to encourage the re-use of electrical items, will initially focus on flat screen TVs, vacuum cleaners and lighting. 

In 2018/19, over 7,200 tonnes of electrical items were recycled through Devon’s recycling centres and the trial aims to go one step further and capture any items that are still in good working order to keep them in circulation for longer.

The participating trial sites are:

• Pinbrook Recycling Centre, Exeter
• Ivybridge Recycling Centre
• Brunel Road Recycling Centre, Newton Abbot
• Knowle Hill Recycling Centre, Exmouth
• Bideford Recycling Centre

Residents arriving at participating recycling centres with flat screen TVs, vacuum cleaners or lighting will now be asked by site staff if the item is still working and in good condition.

Items that can be reused will be PAT and function tested by trained site staff and then made available in the site’s reuse shop for the public to buy, along with furniture, bric-a-brac and other re-useable household items. Non-working electrical items and any failing the testing procedure will be recycled.  

It is estimated that following the testing process, 33% of TVs, 50% of vacuums and 72% of lighting/lamps will be suitable to re-use, meaning an additional 48 tonnes of electrical goods will be re-used per year at participating sites.

Recycling centre re-sale shops are popular with the public as they offer a range of household items at affordable prices.  Public demand for re-sale shops to include electrical items has grown as budget savvy shoppers embrace the cost savings of buying re-usable goods, whilst also benefiting the environment.    

The grant has helped provide workshop and testing facilities as well as staff training to allow re-useable items to be function and safety tested prior to re-sale.  It is anticipated that the scheme will be self-financing going forward which will help keep it going.

Subject to the success of the initial 5 site roll-out, other sites and other electrical items could be added to the scheme in future to further boost re-use in Devon.

For more information visit www.recycledevon.org.