ROYAL MARINES EXERCISE IN THE VILLAGE

The Parish Council was pleased to receive a presentation from RM Major Andy Watkins requesting help in supporting the training of officer recruits.  This will involve an exercise in the village with the young officers meeting and dealing with a variety of challenges.

 All sections of our community will need to be fully aware of what is to happen and it is hoped that some groups and individuals will volunteer to take part.

 Cllr Rob Longhurst confirmed that there was strong support for the Marines, in the village and pride in what they do and the way that they do it.  The march through by the Marines band had been very popular.

 The whole event will take many months in planning and preparing and will need to fit in with the training programme for officer recruits.  The aim is for this to take place in September 2010.

HOUSING LAND IN THE VILLAGE

EDDC are in the process of carrying out an assessment of land that might be available for housing in the village.  One step is to ask private landowners for their views on the land that might be developed in this way.  From this, 13 possible sites have been put forward by private landowners.  This does not include any land suggested by EDDC themselves or by your Parish Council.

These will be considered at an open meeting of the Planning Committee on 19th October 2009.  The meeting will be held in the village hall as usual and plans of the areas should be available for display.  This is a major matter for the future of the village and so everyone is urged to come along to see the suggestions that have been put forward and the restrictions that will be placed on development.     Cont

 JOB ADVERT

 The Parish Council wishes to appoint an Admin Assistant to help the Clerk and to help Councillors implement their ideas for the future of our village.  There is no direct cost to the village as this is being met by a reduction in the hours of work for the Clerk. The post is for 3 hours per week at £7.00 per hour.  Some evening work will be needed as the post holder will be attending Committee meetings.  For the rest of the time, there will be flexibility as to the hours to be worked.  The post holder will work from home and will need to provide their own PC with an internet connection and printer.  An allowance of £20 per month (normally tax free) will be paid for this.

 Details and an application form can be had from the Clerk.  His address is on the front page.  Details can also be found on the website: www.lympstone.org 

 Clerk to the Council: A J Le Riche, DMS,  43 Salisbury Road, Exmouth, EX8 1SL, Tel 279665/ 07866 535580 lympstonepc@leriche6.wanadoo.co.uk

 FROM THE EDITOR

 600 CELEBRATIONS

Well done John Lupton, Brian Mather, Harland, Shirley, Clive and all the many others too numerous to name who worked so hard to organise the events.

REDWING REOPENS 17/10/9

Well, it has finally happened. The boys have got the pub renovated and it opens for business next week.  With a completely new Loft Restaurant and a bar, all big, bright and shiny, I know where I shall be on Friday nights (or whenever they have live music).

ALLOTMENTS (ANNUAL) MEETING

At this long-awaited meeting we heard how a charity with more than a hundred years of grow-your-own had updated their rules (and invented a few new ones). This was an attempt to bring the now fashionable allotments into the twenty-first century and share out this increasingly scarce resource. Someone famous once said that land was scarce ‘because they have stopped making it’. Well it is possible to make new allotments – the Parish Council has to make new allotments by law if sufficient people request them. It now takes only six people to make this request for this to become an order. There are many more than six on the allotment waiting list on the notice board but first we have to establish how many allotments will become vacant before requesting land is purchased or rented by the Council to meet the extra demand.

One useful suggestion thrown up was that anyone with a big garden which they could not fully use could contact the allotment committee who could then find them a suitable tenant who could cultivate part of the garden.

(Read further for the official report)

 Chris Carter, Editor