news & talk in the community

The summer holidays seem well and truly over, as I look forward to a busy autumn of events and activities.

We received a wonderful 50th birthday present from Devon County Council at our Annual Conference on Saturday 9th October when Council Leader John Hart announced a gift of £400,000 to be used as grants for community buildings.

There were congratulations all round for Bratton Fleming Composting Group who won our Devon Community of the Year Competition and for Roy Turner and St Giles in the Wood who received the Devon Rural Housing Awards.

It was good to welcome John Coleman of Defra to the conference and to hear that Defra are in listening mode. The Community Council is well placed, through its formal links to Defra, to share the issues and challenges facing Devon’s rural communities as well as ensuring the innovative and successful work that is going on right across Devon is known about and celebrated.

Earlier in the week I participated in our quarterly Members Forum. This is open to all our full and associate members and provides a real opportunity to meet with the key players from across Devon’s public sector. Excellent presentations were provided by the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary (it was good to hear that the lack of rural policing has been recognised and is being addressed as part of a re-focusing of police activity) and the NHS Devon who gave a lot of information about the on-going changes to the NHS and the need to focus more on the preventative agenda. The members asked lots of pertinent questions but also shared their knowledge of what worked and made many suggestions about how services could be improved. If we want to see improvements in our services then this Forum provides a real opportunity to get to the people who can make a difference and I would urge our members, both full and associate to get involved.