Friday 29 November 2024
This week saw us reach an important milestone on the journey towards creating the Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority.
The Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority Regulations 2024, a ‘statutory instrument’, has been laid in Parliament, paving the way towards the creation of the Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority.
The Regulations will be debated in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. When they are signed by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner MP, under powers delegated by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, the Devon and Torbay Combined County Authority (CCA) will come into being.
The CCA will make decisions about the powers and funding devolved from Whitehall to Devon and Torbay through the deal that was agreed in January this year.
Read the full story on the news page of our website.
With winter well underway and Christmas around the corner, we are aware that the financial challenges facing some households in Devon will be intensified over the next few weeks.
The colder weather and shorter daylight hours affect everything from our finances to our feelings, and it can be especially difficult for some people, particularly if they are struggling to pay for things like food and energy.
That’s why we are reminding people of the support available. We've put together a special 'cost of living' edition of our newsletter as part of a 'winter support and wellbeing' series to share information and advice to help you and your families to stay well, warm, happy and safe this winter.
If you don’t have enough money to live on, it's important to make sure you know what support is available. If you missed it in your inbox, please read it online here.
Our flood risk team is working closely with the Environment Agency and district councils to review the communities and properties in Devon which were flooded during Storm Bert.
Strong winds and heavy rain battered Devon last weekend and we received reports that approximately 40 properties suffered internal flooding. The results of the investigation, which will be published in the New Year, will help us identify which properties and areas would most benefit from future resilience measures, in line with other priorities, workload and funding opportunities.
Our initial investigations, which includes feedback from communities, shows that in the communities where we have delivered flood schemes in recent years, such as Ivybridge, Sidmouth, Axminster, Uplyme and Stokeinteignhead, flooding was prevented. The number of flooded properties across the county would certainly have been much higher without these essential flood improvements.
Read the full story on the news page of our website.
 Festive fun with our Holiday Activities and Food programme
Children in Devon aged five to 16-years-old who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals are invited to take part in our action-packed Holiday Activities and Food programme this festive season.
We’ve teamed up with over 60 different providers across Devon to offer a great range of free physical activities and healthy, nutritional, hot meals during the school holidays to children of low-income families.
For four days over the upcoming Christmas holidays, hundreds of children from across the county can enjoy a wide range of activities, from cooking and craft, sports and coaching, outdoor and forest play, music and dance and more. All clubs will be operating for a minimum of four hours and will include a hot meal. Some schemes are also providing Christmas hampers for families.
Bookings are now open, and details of activities can be found on our interactive map. If your child is eligible to access the programme, simply search for a provider in your area, have a look at their listing to see what they’re offering, then when you’re ready, book a place with them directly.
Read the full story on the news page of our website.
We want all of our care experienced young adults aged 22 to 25 years old to have something nice to look forward to during the festive season.
Everyone up to 22 years old will get a gift from their personal advisor as part of our Local Offer, but we wanted to ensure that older care leavers will also get something to look forward to this Christmas.
So, we joined forces with Torbay Council to make sure that all of our care experienced young adults in Devon and Torbay will receive a hamper of presents.
With over £5,000 raised and lots of items donated, we packed over 250 Christmas hampers with gifts including blankets, towels, toiletries and chocolate.
A huge thank you for your generosity and to all those involved. The hampers will be distributed to young people over the next few weeks in time for Christmas.
If you’d like to help with the Christmas Hamper Project, donations for next year can be made through the existing Just Giving page.
 Beware of Black Friday scams
It's an expensive time of year, and with Christmas around the corner, we're all on the lookout for a bargain. Fraudsters know this and are waiting to exploit you!
We’re urging consumers to be on their guard against scams as Black Friday kicks off the festive shopping period.
Our Trading Standards service is highlighting eight types of scams and we’re asking consumers to learn the tell-tale signs so that they can protect themselves.
They include delivery scams, fake website scams, ticket fraud and offers that are too good to be true.
Read the full story on the news page of our website to find out more about these scams, and others. And remember, never be rushed into making a purchase. Always take five to stop fraud.
National Tree Week is being celebrated in Devon this week with an announcement that Emergency Tree Funding, granted by the Woodland Trust, has been extended to help with our Free Tree Scheme this winter.
Since we first piloted our Free Tree Scheme in 2019, it has funded the planting of more than 50,000 trees across the county as part of our ongoing efforts to meet our carbon net zero targets as an authority by 2030 and to replace trees lost to Ash Dieback.
The Emergency Tree Fund has played a vital role in contributing to that figure over the past three years, enabling planting to be carried out at over 300 sites in Devon.
We’re expecting to plant at least a further 27,000 trees before next March, which will take our overall figure to approximately 77,000 trees planted since 2019.
Read the full story on the news page of our website.
 ‘Substantially complete’ Queen Street improvement scheme pauses for Christmas
The Queen Street improvement scheme in Newton Abbot is substantially complete, and work will now take a break ahead of the Christmas shopping period with the final touches being completed in the New Year.
Our scheme, which we are delivering in partnership with Teignbridge District Council, will transform Queen Street into a more attractive, healthier and greener place for visitors and businesses.
The improvements we have delivered so far includes a new Pedestrian and Cycle Zone covering the section between Albany Street and Courtenay Street, two flexible loading bays and widened pavements. We’ve also improved side road crossings which will provide additional space and better access to shops and businesses particularly for less-mobile visitors or those with young children in buggies.
Daytime works will now pause between Saturday 30 November 2024 and Thursday 2 January 2025 and most of the fencing and red barriers will be removed during this time. Contractors will return in the New Year to put the final touches to the scheme, including planting trees and flowers, installing seating and adding new road signs and road markings.
Find out more in the full story on the news page of our website.
A number of night-time road closures will take place on the A379 and Bad Homburg Way, near the Devon Hotel Roundabout in Exeter, during December and early January.
All the road closures are infrastructure works related to the South-West Exeter development, between the A30 overbridge and the Matford Park and Ride roundabout.
The works are conducted on our behalf by multiple contractors who have coordinated the closures to minimise disruption.
During the work a fully signed diversion will be in place. Exact dates of overnight work may need to be adjusted due to weather.
Any changes of the dates for each closure will be displayed nearer the time on large, trailer mounted signs.
Read the full story on the news page of our website for details of each closure.
 Left to right: Devon County Councillor Colin Slade, Kathy Trist (Everys Solicitors) and Will Vine (Everys Solicitors)
A lifesaving new defibrillator has been installed in the Grand Western Canal car park on Canal Hill in Tiverton.
The public access defibrillator, located on the wall of the public toilets, is available to provide emergency support for visitors to the Country Park and for the local community in South East Tiverton.
It can be used by any member of the public in an emergency where someone is having a cardiac arrest – where a person’s heart stops beating and they are unresponsive and not breathing.
The defibrillator and cabinet were funded by Everys Solicitors and provided by Jay’s Aim – a charity established with the target of reducing the rate of sudden cardiac death among young people in our region. Councillor Colin Slade, Councillor for Tiverton East and Chairman of the Canal’s Joint Advisory Committee, allocated part of his locality budget to pay for the installation of the cabinet and its connection to mains power.
Read the full story on the news page of our website.
A reminder that from this Sunday (1 December), you will only be able to dispose of upholstered furniture at one of eight of our specially designated Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs).
It follows the introduction of new requirements from the Environment Agency for our recycling centres to have segregated facilities to handle Waste Upholstered Domestic Seating (WUDS). This includes sofas, sofa beds, armchairs, recliner chairs, upholstered kitchen and dining room chairs, upholstered garden furniture, stools and foot stools, office chairs, futons, bean bags, floor and sofa cushions.
It's because these items contain large quantities of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs or forever chemicals) and other hazardous chemicals in the textiles and foam. They persist in the environment and can be harmful to health, so need to be sent for incineration separately where these chemicals are destroyed.
This segregation will require additional containers and facilities to be provided at our HWRCs, so due to space constraints, only a limited number of sites in Devon will be able to accept these items.
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