Lifeline services for the elderly in Budleigh Salterton have taken another hit today as Age Concern announced it is closing its day centre.

Following on the heels of the imminent closure of the Abbeyfield Shandford, Budleigh Salterton Age Concern has confirmed the current facilities provided at the health and wellbeing hub will end on April 30.

Daniel Wilkins  www.exmouthjournal.co.uk

Following on the heels of the imminent closure of the Abbeyfield Shandford, Budleigh Salterton Age Concern has confirmed the current facilities provided at the health and wellbeing hub will end on April 30.

The charity provides a drop-in service for people over the age of 50 on weekdays, and day care at least two days a week, at the former Budleigh Hospital in East Budleigh Road.

Former Budleigh GP Graham Taylor, chairman of Age Concern, said he is ‘extremely disappointed’ that the service is going to close, but hopes its lunch club can continue ‘in one form or another’

Dr Taylor said their service has become ‘economically unsustainable’.

He said: “The charity is an established part of Budleigh Salterton life, giving elderly people in the local community a great service.

“However, in the present climate when care is focusing increasingly on assisting clients in their own homes rather than in day centres, our provision at the hub has become economically unsustainable.”

Age Concern said the welfare of its clients is of ‘paramount importance’ and it will do ‘everything possible’ to provide suitable alternatives.

Dr Taylor said: “It is appreciated how much anxiety such a change will cause, but the trustees and staff will be available to talk through the process with clients and members of their families.

“Trustees will offer support and information and where needed assist with making referrals to Social Services for assessments.”

The charity will offer full redundancy payments to its staff to help them secure new career opportunities.

Dr Taylor added: “The Trustees are hugely grateful for the valuable contribution made by the team of volunteers without whose loyal support, Age Concern could not have been so successful over the last 30 years.”

According to Age Concern Budleigh Salterton, Westbank, which runs the hub, said it is going to make ‘every effort’ to reduce the impact of the change for existing clients, and will be seeking to make use of the space vacated by the charity to meet the future needs of older people.

Owl believes there is a backstory to this that readers should be aware of.

There are two environmental sites of European significance in East Devon: the Exe Estuary and the Pebblebed Heath. These sites are so special that local authorities have a legal duty to ensure no adverse effects occur from increased recreational demand as a result of new developments. Putting it crudely a way has to be found to stop members of the public visiting these site as frequently as they do as there will be a lot more people around. This concerns not just dog walkers, it includes recreational use of the Exe Estuary for activities like kite surfing!

A “mitigation” study was carried out c 2013. The main mitigation measures suggested was the creation of Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (SANG) to divert visitors to somewhere less sensitive.

EDDC put forward initial plans for expansion and enhancement of the Clyst Valley and in something they called the “Valley Parks” around Exmouth. However EDDC shot themselves in the foot by granting planning permission for residential development on land that forms part of the Exmouth Valley Parks whilst the proposal was under consideration. Only the Clyst Valley remains.
We are fast running out of greenspace in East Devon. EDDC has agreed with its neighbouring authorities of Exeter City Council and Teignbridge District Council to levy Habitat Mitigation contributions from housing development within 10Km of each zone, increasing in any overlapping zones, see:

Click to access new-hab-reg-rates-pdf-aug-19.pdf

Owl would like to point out the obvious: green space is finite and money can’t create it out of thin air.

Becca Gliddon eastdevonnews.co.uk 

Countryside paths and lanes around Cranbrook, Broadclyst and Pinhoe will be improved to create a network of walking and cycling routes linking up local green beauty spots.

East Devon District Council (EDDC) said the Routes for Roots project was another step towards bringing the Clyst Valley Regional Park to life, planting trees and creating traffic-free trails.

The aim of the Clyst Valley Trail was to ‘form the backbone’ of a network, linking the Exe Estuary Trail with the Exe Valley Way, the council said.

EDDC called the regional park – half the size of Exeter – a ‘vital breathing space’, encouraging local people to get active outside and ‘discover hidden gems’ on their doorstep.

Councillor Geoff Jung, EDDC portfolio holder for the environment, said the council hoped opening up countryside to all would help combat loneliness in the elderly and isolated, and encourage young people outside.

He hoped the link-up network would persuade parents with children to play outside, and the older generation to explore and visit areas of historical interest.

And as a follow-on from Great Trees in the Clyst Valley, where volunteers planted 2,700 trees, people can sign-up to become Friends of the Clyst Valley.

Cllr Jung said: “We’ve thought carefully and creatively about how we can help people explore wonderful places such as Cranbrook Country Park and Ashclyst Forest.”

The project has secured funding of £98,800 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, EDDC, LiveWest, Move More Cranbrook, National Trust, Active Devon and Devon County Council.

The district council said the project will:

• encourage people to ‘get out there’ and discover the countryside with an ‘exciting’ range of guided walks on a variety of different themes. including wildlife, art, history and archaeology.
• encourage communities to explore and record their own historic routes, with a series of local history roadshows and the creation of community maps.
• get young people playing and socialising outdoors through activities like bushcraft, archery, and live action role-play.
• train volunteers to monitor conditions of paths and routes so they can be prioritised for maintenance and improvement.
• create new permissive paths.
• plant a new generation of trees to reduce flooding, improve water and air quality and protect crucial wildlife habitats.
• install improved signs, gates and path surfaces.
• record historical features such as routes, mills, leats and water meadows.
• install new public art showing the history of the area, such as the Cranbrook archer.

For more information, and to become a Friend of the Clyst Valley, see here 

A Cornish woman speaks out: “Second homes are bad. We know this. It’s why there’s such a thing as the Cornwall Community Foundation, a charity set up by second home owners to make them feel better about destroying communities, perpetuating gross economic inequality and contributing to the housing crisis. But there’s something missing from this guilt list, something rarely mentioned in the context of housing: climate change.”

Catrina Davies  www.thetimes.co.uk

Second home ownership has risen by almost a third in 20 years. In 2018 two thirds of all the houses sold around Padstow (David Cameron’s occasional abode) were bought for second homes. The Resolution Foundation has estimated that one in ten Britons owns a second home while four in ten own no property at all. In some parts of Pembrokeshire 70 per cent of the houses are second homes. No coincidence, perhaps, that Cornwall and west Wales are the two most economically deprived regions in northern Europe.

So far, so depressing, but what’s it got to do with climate change? First, wasted energy. I grew up in west Cornwall, working as an author, musician and occasional gardener and cleaner but I can only afford to stay there as an adult by living in a shed with no insulation and no central heating. I found it deeply dispiriting therefore when I went to clean someone’s second home on a Saturday morning in December to find the five-bed house, which has been empty for four months, 15C warmer than my own place.

I found that the oil-fired boiler was linked to a thermostat which was set to 19C. Walking home I noticed the vents belonging to all the empty houses on the cliff chuffing out steam like Thomas the Tank Engine. I assume it’s because granite cottages smell damp if they’re not lived in.

I don’t have a fridge, partly because they cost a lot in electricity and partly because HFCs, the chemicals used in fridges and air conditioning, are up to 9,000 times more warming for the atmosphere than CO2. Yet all the empty houses have family-sized fridge freezers and I’ve only ever had one client turn theirs off when the house is empty. Most second homes have lights that come on automatically every night and winking burglar alarms.

Incredibly, 6,650 of Cornwall’s 8,808 registered holiday lets pay zero towards local services. The most recent study in July 2018 estimates that Cornwall council loses £13 million in tax revenue because of second homes. Set this against the council’s projected budget deficit of £17.3 million by 2023-24. Factor in a promise to spend £16 million tackling climate change, and weep.

Catrina Davies is the author of Homesick: Why I Live in a Shed, published by Riverrun