Bovey Tracey - Are visitors welcome or not? By Tony Allen

WHAT DO RESIDENTS REALLY WANT FOR BOVEY?

I’ve sat through the three presentations that were made by Teignbridge District Council (TDC) and the Town Council (BTTC) very recently relating to ideas raised by TDC planners about how a very much needed new replacement primary school may be found for our rapidly expanding town, especially in the light of Devon County Council (DCC), the Education Authority, stating that funds could not be found by DCC in the foreseeable future for building such a new school.

Now I’m not going in to the pros and cons of using BTTC owned land for this, on the basis of inviting retailers to bid for building a sales outlet (probably a small supermarket) on the land while funding the construction of a new school. That is a debate to be taken up elsewhere.

However, it did seem to me that, in each of the presentations, the focus changed very quickly from the need for a new school to the reasons for not having a supermarket built on the BTTC land along the Le Molay-Littry Way. So, it made me think about what the attitudes to the future of Bovey Tracey really are amongst our residents. Some talk about keeping the town just as it is now, others want to see the town centre thriving, others wish to have much more in the way of attractions to draw people into the town.

THE TOWN CENTRE REGENERATION GROUP (TCRG)

The recently formed TCRG (made up of Town councillors and business representatives) was set up to look at these issues, and at how Bovey could be made more attractive to live in, how businesses could attract more customers, and how the various offerings the town has could be made more visible to the world outside Bovey (from local villages and our tourist resorts, to casual day-trippers and organised groups). These are not straight forward matters to address, because our residents have their own varying visions of what Bovey should be: a nice quiet place to retire to, a good base for commuting to work in other parts of Devon, a safe place in which to bring up children, and so on. The local businesses would all obviously want to be profitable, and I guess most would want to see even more custom from visitors to the town and indeed from those who live here.

There are loads of issues about parking, public transport (or rather lack of it), and the flow of traffic through the town and over the bridge, but I don’t want to discuss these here this time either. The key thing is that everyone seems to have a different view of what should be provided, and this will always be the case.

As I can’t pretend to have the solution, I hope this column will give you something to think about and even discuss with others. Is there a genuine conflict between what many residents seem to want for keeping the town more or less as it is now, compared with those who want to see the town responding to its growing population and need for new facilities, where businesses can flourish and residents of all ages can enjoy living?

I expect the Regeneration Group will be keeping everyone up-to-date with the progress they make, while BTTC is planning to appoint a part-time Town Centre Manager (shared with another location) who will help in this. The improved use of social media is also being investigated as a means to better promote the USPs (Unique Selling Points) of the town to entice people to come and visit our attractions and shops, and to better handle comments and suggestions from you. The thing is, do you support this town regeneration activity or not?

If you have opinions you’d like to air now, I will be pleased to pass them on to the TCGR for further consideration. I can be contacted on my NHW email address, which is bowdens.nhw@btinternet.com, or by letter c/o Bovey Tracey Town Council office.

AND NOW, ON A LIGHTER TONE...

A man is driving down the road. A woman is driving down the same road from the opposite direction. As they pass each other, the woman leans out the window and shouts “PIG!!” The man immediately leans out his window and yells “BITCH!!”

They each continue on their ways, and as the man rounds the next curve he crashes into a huge pig in the middle of the road.

Female morale of this story: If only men would listen......!

MORE OXYMORONS (omitted in error from the May edition)...................

Why do “overlook” and “oversee” mean opposite things?

Doesn’t “expecting the unexpected” make the unexpected expected?

If all the world’s a stage, where’s the audience sitting?

Why do we drive on a “parkway” and park on a “driveway”?

And why is the third hand on a watch called the “second hand”?

AND A FEW MORE PUNS....

I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you'd be in Seine

The fattest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

A backward poet writes inverse.

Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says 'Dam!'

In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.

Tony Allen is a Bovey Tracey Town Councillor & the council’s representative on the Bovey NHW Forum. This column is written in a personal capacity and not on behalf of any particular group or organisation. The jokes and oxymorons are included because people say they like them. They’re all in the public domain, so you may have seen some before!