Councillor Eleanor Rylance, chair of East Devon District Council, said: “We are delighted to showcase the creativity of local young people and celebrate the remarkable natural environment which surrounds Honiton.”

Adam Manning www.midweekherald.co.uk 

New artwork and a town map are to be unveiled at Honiton station by the Mayor of Honiton, Councillor Helen Hurford.

The unveiling will take place on Wednesday, December 13 at 12.30pm.

The project has been led by the Friends of Honiton Station and has seen attractive new artwork installed on the inside of the station’s footbridge and a shed on Platform 1.

In addition, an illustrated town map has been placed in the station forecourt. The project is the brainchild of Friends’ member East Devon and Honiton Town Councillor Jenny Brown.

Honiton Primary School pupils created the new artwork on the station footbridge during workshops with artist Alistair Lambert at Thelma Hulbert Gallery (THG), Honiton Museum and the Blackdown Hills National Landscape.

The workshops were part of THG’s Honiton Hippo project for the national Wild Escape campaign. Local families also created animals to add to the artwork during workshops at the gallery and in the St. Paul’s area of Honiton over the Easter holidays.

Local artist Brittany E Lakin created the artwork on both sides of the Platform 1 shed.

The £6,700 project has been made possible thanks to funding from South Western Railway, Honiton Town Council and grants organised by the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership from CrossCountry Trains and the Community Rail Development Fund, a joint initiative of the Department for Transport and the Community Rail Network.

Cllr Jenny Brown said: “I am thrilled to see the unveiling of this vibrant, colourful artwork. This project would not have been possible without the strong partnership that has been created over the past few years with our stakeholders, who are always very receptive of our ideas.

“I hope as commuters and visitors to Honiton walk past it, they will take the time to enjoy these latest additions.”

Martin Long chairman of the Friends of Honiton Station said: “Honiton station is important to so many people, and we are very proud of it, and all that it tries to do. We believe that the station is the perfect venue to promote and develop community-based art. To that end, we have been delighted to work with a range of partners to bring even more exciting artwork to our station.”

Councillor Eleanor Rylance, chair of East Devon District Council, said: “We are delighted to showcase the creativity of local young people and celebrate the remarkable natural environment which surrounds Honiton.”

Random swab testing is restarting in the UK due to concerns about a new Covid-19 variant that could cause a winter surge in infections. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) reports that the JN.1 variant has been the fastest-growing variant for at least eight months.

Suruchi Sharma Diwan www.inyourarea.co.uk 

According to the Mirror, the Office for National Statistics has resumed random testing amid early indications that 1.2 per cent of the population had the virus in the last week of November, up from one per cent the previous week. However, despite worries, Covid-19 rates in the UK are still low.

The UKHSA is now closely monitoring JN.1, which accounts for one in 13 cases detected. Designated as an official variant (V-23DEC-01), 302 cases of the strain have been identified in the UK so far. JN.1 has a mutation suggesting it could better evade immunity, emphasising the importance of recent vaccination for protection.

Dr Meaghan Kall, an epidemiologist at the UKHSA, tweeted: “JN.1 has been designated variant V-23DEC-01 due to increasing sequence prevalence in the UK and internationally.” She added: “With variant status, we will closely monitor JN.1. It seems likely we must now add variant pressures to the forecast of a winter Covid-19 wave.”

With a weekly growth rate advantage of 84.2 per cent, JN.1 is still a small proportion of infections. Despite this, Prof Stephen Griffin, professor of cancer virology at Leeds University, tweeted that he had ‘not seen a growth advantage like that in some time’.

The possibility of a winter Covid-19 wave, coupled with a rise in flu cases, could strain the NHS. It comes as flu cases have already started to spike, with an increase in hospitalised cases by more than half in just last week.

The Winter Coronavirus Infection Study, a scaled-back version of the previous Covid-19 Infection Survey, found 1.2 per cent of participants had the virus in the week ending November 29, with higher rates among 18 to 30-year-olds. However, this early data from lateral flow tests has not yet been ‘weighted’ to represent the demographics of the population at large.

New data also showed the percentage of hospital admissions testing positive for Covid-19 remains low at 2.9 per 100,000 patients in the week to December 3. This was up from 2.6 the previous week but the same level as a fortnight ago, according to the UKHSA.

An average of 2,343 people tested positive for Covid-19 in hospitals in England each day last week – less than half the number at this point last year. Dr Mary Ramsay, UKHSA director of public health, warned families to avoid mixing when they feel unwell.

She said: “Getting vaccinated as soon as possible will help reduce your risk of getting seriously ill with flu or Covid-19 this festive season. The vaccines can take a week or two to provide maximum protection, so get booked in now to keep your Christmas plans on track.”

Local Tories say they’ve been “thrown under the bus” and the electorate disrespected!

It’s all about entitlement shattered by a “coalition of the willing”. – Owl

Guy Henderson www.devonlive.com

A huge power shift on Torbay Council unfolded in a marathon meeting which stretched over five often ill-tempered hours. The Liberal Democrat, Independent and Prosper Torbay groups united to undo many of the now-minority Conservative administration’s structures.

After last May’s elections, the Tories had an overall majority and ran the council, but the defection of two of their members to form the new Prosper Torbay group last month changed the balance completely.

The Tories remain the largest party, with 17 seats, but the combined opposition now has 19 members. The meeting of the full council gave the new non-Conservative ‘team’ their first chance to challenge the administration, and they seized it.

The meeting, which ran well beyond its four-hour time limit after the opposition councillors voted to press on past 10pm, made a long list of changes to the chairmanship of council committees.

Out went a number of Conservative councillors, who found themselves sidelined in favour of the opposition, leading to angry exchanges.

“Maybe this is where the love-in stops!” said council leader David Thomas (Con, Preston), as his fellow Tories began to lose their posts.

The most heated debate centred on chairing the influential planning committee, which went to Prosper Torbay rebel Katya Maddison (Shiphay) with current chair Cllr Jackie Thomas (Con, Kings Ash) sidelined.

Cllr Adam Billings (Con, Churston with Galmpton) urged members to stick with the current chair, and said: “Planning is one of the most important committees this council has. Its decisions affect people’s lives. Why change something that at the moment is working well?”

And Cllr Jackie Thomas argued: “This is simply making change for change’s sake.”

There was also argument over chairing the harbours committee, with Cllr Andrew Strang (Con, Furzeham with Summercombe) removed in favour of Cllr Nicole Amil (Ind, Cockington with Chelston).

Cllr Strang argued that although the committee covered all of the bay’s harbours, with millions of pounds in ‘levelling up’ money to be spent on Brixham fish quay in the near future, a Brixham councillor should chair the committee.

Cllr Nick Bye (Con, Wellswood) said Brixham’s Tory councillors were being “thrown under the bus” and the opposition groups were “disrespecting the electorate.” The Conservatives took a clean sweep of Brixham’s council seats in May.

He continued: “It’s a disgrace that you are removing all responsible positions from the Brixham councillors. Of all the shoddy deals made tonight, this is the worst.”

The Conservatives warned that the council should be united when it came to securing more than £100 million pledged by the government for major projects across the bay.

But opposition members disputed the risk to the funding and said the Tories were playing “petty political parlour games.”

The wrangling had started with changes to the number of representatives of each party on various committees, to reflect the new balance of the council.

“This could herald a new way of collaborative working,” said Independent group leader Darren Cowell (Shiphay). “We need to show that we are a stable council.”

And Liberal Democrat leader Steve Darling also called for stability. “It’s about making sure we have firm foundations,” he said. “The easiest thing would be to have a revolution, but it’s important that we keep stability.

“I hope we can build on a collaborative approach.” But Cllr Bye accused the opposition group of packing his fellow Tories off to less important committees and keeping the best jobs for themselves.

“You’ve got to let us get on and do the jobs we were elected to do,” he pleaded.

Cllr David Thomas said he had offered seats on the ruling cabinet committee to the opposition, but they had declined. He went on: “This doesn’t feel very much like working together.

“We are on the edge of a precipice. We’ve got the money, the plans, the partners, the ambition and the political will to get these projects across the line, and we owe it to our communities.

“I desperately want us to deliver, and I think what we are doing tonight hinders us.”