Cornwall Council. www.cornwall.gov.uk
County Councillor representing East Looe and Deviock Parish : Cllr Armand Toms. cllr.armand.toms@cornwall.gov.uk
tel: 07565529565 or 01503 26423
Reporting any concerns/issues including environment issues: cornwall.gov.uk/report-something
Recycling collection: General: every 2nd Monday from 2nd Jan 2023. Garden Waste every 2nd Wednesday from 4 Jan requires individual subscription. www.cornwall.gov.uk/rubbish-recycling-and-waste
News ; Jan 2024: Announcement of a new weekly food waste and fortnightly rubbish collections. The new service starts in the St Germans and Deviock area from April 2024. The changes will cut Cornwall's annual carbon emissions by nearly 18,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. That’s a saving of about the amount of CO2 that a car would kick out driving round the world 2,547 times. The new service will give all of us a way to contribute directly from home to the creation of a thriving, sustainable Cornwall that offers a great environment for all.
• Follow us on our Cornwall Recycles Facebook page for updates and recycling tips. Visit www.facebook.com/cornwallrecycles.
For full details of the new collection system due to start in April in Downderry and Seaton PL11 cllck here
Office: The Vestry, St Nicolas Church, Main Road, Downderry. PL11 3LE* NB the office is currently closed due to Covid restrictions. For Contact:
http://www.deviockparish.org.uk Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/deviockparishcouncil/
The Parish Council meet at the Zone every 2nd Thursday of the month at 7.30pm except August ; The Planning Committee meet on the fourth Thursday of every month (not December ) at 6.30pm in the Zone.
Chairman , Mark Gibbons; Vice Chairman, John Croft, Vice Chairman
Downderry Ward: 5 Councillors: : Mark Gibbons, Helen Brockbank, Shelley England, James Millidge, Steven Alford
719 electors: 297 houses: 56 flats
Seaton Ward: 3 Councillors: John Croft, Mark Bloor; Jacqui Gratton
249 electors; 110 homes, 29 flats
Hessenford Ward: 3 Councillors: David Cormack, Ann Robinson, Angela Thorpe
139 electors: 69 houses
All Contact to The Clerk. Karen Pugh. 01503 250052. email. clerk.deviock@btinternet.com
Deviock Parish Council and Deviock Coimkmunity Trust join to develop a Community Homes project at Coombe Park, Downderry. Both were invited to speak at DaSRA's AGM on 29 April 2024
Speech delivered at DaSRA’s AGM. 29 April 2024
Community Homes: Chairman Mark Gibbons. Deviock Parish Council.
Contact. mgibbons.deviockpc@gmail.com. 07767 496926
Amenities which we have taken for granted for many years are currently under threat. Each of these uniquely serves the community directly with the facilities they provide. Whether you use some, all, or none of them at all, the fact that we have these spaces to host various activities, events, functions and to provide essential services benefits us all.
Keeping everything we’ve got is going to be a tall order and a lot of hard work, but if we let them slip through our fingers now, they are gone forever. So there is a duty here, not only in the interests of current residents, but for future generations, to do everything we can to protect them.
Fortunately, each of these projects has an extraordinarily capable and motivated steering group at the helm, and they all stand a good chance of succeeding. So it’s not a bun fight – it’s important for these teams to communicate and liaise for the best chance of success.
As well as supporting and working with the project teams, the Parish Council is able to contribute in the form of grants and loans, and it also has access to external resources and funding for community projects.
But I am here primarily to talk about community homes.
The Parish Council has been trying to address our local housing needs for nearly 30 years - I am happy to say that we now have a clear front runner.
Coombe Park is owned and managed by a local family and has been providing affordable housing in Downderry for decades. However, with legislation evolving to address climate change, there is a real prospect that it will be impossible to meet new environmental and efficiency requirements there in the very near future.
We began talking with the family about the future of the site, and its potential for providing more affordable home in the village, around three years ago. They have been open to our ideas and supportive throughout. The site is unique in our Parish – being flat land and close to transport and amenities – and as a result has a value that would be prohibitive to sustainable and affordable housing were it not their altruism and desire to support current and future generations of local people.
The vision for Coombe Park is to provide energy efficient rental homes, of a high standard, for local people. As well as housing everybody that currently lives there, with good planning to modern standards, it has the potential to provide homes for a significant number on our housing needs register.
Housing Needs surveys have identified homes for young people, new families and older residents wishing to downsize but remain in the community as primary requirements – and this development would serve all of these groups. We would not have been able to progress this far were it not for the visionary early stage funding scheme provided by Cornwall Council which has helped us reach agreement on a sale price and heads of terms. We are now at the stage where the Parish Council has handed the project over to a community land trust, about which you will soon hear more detail moment from Simon Ryan.
Deviock Community Trust is about to engage in a detailed viability study, again supported by Cornwall Council funding, that will report back on the feasibility of these plans later this year. If it gets the green light, The Trust will proceed with the purchase and become the new owners of the site. It will then work to secure the grant funding required to progress the project to completion and will manage it thereafter.
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Speech delivered at DaSRA’s AGM. 29 April 2024
Simon Ryan, Three Seas and Deviock Community Trust.
I’m from Cawsand…I have been in community development for most of my working career, 20 years in supporting groups to do things, in particular I am personally a specialist in buying old buildings for community use, refurbishing them, raising money, making stuff happen. The big one that matters for the current discussion is that a group of us in Cawsand bought three redundant council houses there in 2018, 2019, 2020. Those would certainly have gone to auction for second homes. Thanks to Cornwall Council, they took a punt on us, as an unknown organisation and let us work on it. It took 18 months, we raised the money, we bought those houses, we refurbished those houses and there are three local families living in them. Big victory - proof that it can be done. It mattered a lot to us. On the back of that, a group of us, from that time started Three Seas, Three Seas Cornwall officially, with a view to expanding that model across the county.
We went to Looe, You probably know the Looe council flats, up high above the bridge there, a beautiful building. Exactly the same situation. The Council cannot deal with these old, tired out, expensive, complicated sites. And they would sell them at auction, and they’d be gone. Those are terrifically beautiful buildings. Instead to their lasting, lasting honour, Cornwall Council gave them to us for £1, 17p a flat, it’s not bad.
The truth of course is that we are not paying £1, we are buying a £2m commitment. That’s the reality. Fantastically expensive, terrible access, really dangerous, slope behind. People in Looe do not need convincing about landslips, it’s a real live issue. That has to be dealt with. We are also going much further than most in green energy, good insulation, new windows, solar if we can make it work and so on. We are going to build very high quality, very cheap expenses, housing. Rental again, mostly for local young people, Mark alluded to it, there are people, who want to downsize, there are people who want to start their life in that town. The project is going really well. Fantastic enthusiasm, leading us to believe the we can now roll this out across the county. You yourselves are next. Applause and gratitude to the Daniel family, who have made this happen. (Loud clapping). An extraordinary opportunity, an extraordinary offer, a really important opportunity for your community. The family in addition to making that generous offer, have laid down conditions. One: these houses will be for local people. Bang. No ifs and buts. And second, these houses will be, first and foremost, for the existing tenants
Our duty as an operator is to find a way to house those tenants during the build process and to ensure they get a home afterwards. We will abide by that. That is written into the constitution of the organisation, and we will not change it. That is fixed. Everything else is flexible. We have been three years to get to this point, to do the deal, to work out the basics, to get a valuation, to get a process started. The next stage now, six months minimum, it’s a £30,000 grant, engineers, surveyors, drone for the topographical survey, architects, solicitor, all those people
At the end of that process, it’s called a feasibility study, it’s a full document, the Looe one is 20 pages long. It tells you in detail what’s got to be done, how much it will cost, how long it will take, what the pitfalls are, what will work.
With that 6-8 months, minimum, part of that, critically, is community consultation. It’s vital that this community as a whole supports that activity. There’ll be surveys, there’ll be public meetings, there’ll be discussions. We need people to be onside. We cannot raise the money without it. Once we have demonstrated that the community wants it, and we have a complete costed plan, we then go to the powers that be for planning permission for all the rest of it and to raise the money. Weirdly, raising the money isn’t the hardest part. Government has an agency called Homes England, who are very keen to spend, housing is difficult to fund at the moment, they are willing to fund us. Cornwall Council will fund us, banks will fund us. We will not be going to the community for community shares money, the total involved is too high. We are talking £3m, possibly more. Process, time, 18 months, two years. We will be back. We will be talking to you again. Thank you very much.
(ends). May 2024
Deviock Neighbourhood Plan https://www.deviockneighbourhoodplan.co.uk
Member of Parliament; Sheryll Murray MP Conservative. Constituency office, The Parade, Liskeard PL14 6AF. 01579 344428; email: sheryll@sheryllmurray.com
House of Commons: London SW1A 0AA; 020 7219 3000 sherryl.murray.mp@parliament.uk
NHS. www.nhs.uk
Doctors’ Surgery : Quay Lane Surgery , St Germans PL12 5LH. 01503 230088
Also Surgery, Broads Yard , Downderry
Patient Participation Group . Every GP practice has a Patient Participation Group. One fundamental requirement is for PPGs to improve two-way communication between the practice and patients and to provide constructive feedback from patients to the practice. The Chair of our local PPG is Claire Croft: email: quaylaneppg@gmail.com
Hospitals: Derriford Hospital Derriford Road , Plymouth PL6 8DH 01752 202082
https://www.plymouthhospitals.nhs.uk. https://www.nhs.uk/Services/Hospitals/
Community Hospital Liskeard, minor injuries , Clemo Road, Liskeard PL14 3XD
Pharmacies: nearest : Boots in Looe, Liskeard, Torpoint, Millbrook
Defribillators. :1. outside toilets in centre of Downderry 2. In Seaton, next to toilets. If access needed:phone 999, give location, and you will be given a code no.
Dentists - NHS for nearby Dentists. or phone 0300 311 2233
Downderry and Seaton Beaches: Dog-friendly beaches throughout the year
Downderry Slipway & Boat Storage Area
Cornwall Council has responsibility for Downderry Slipway and Storage Area. The Cornwall Maritime department issue beach access permits which includes a key to the barrier and a mooring spot on the beach. Contact 01872 272130 or email: harbouroffice@cornwall.gov.uk. Local contact is Mike Hill, tel. 01503 250672.
September 2021. In response to a query from a resident about the parking of cars on the beach, DaSRA received the following information from Cornwall Council's Environment team:
Although a beach, Downderry is also used as a small harbour and as such comes under the management of Cornwall Council’s Maritime Service. The Maritime Manager has confirmed that a small number of vehicles are issued with permits to park on the beach whilst conducting business related to the harbour. These are the vehicles that will have been seen parked on the sand and will have permission to park in that area. Further queries can be passed onto Maritime Service via the following email address: harbouroffice@cornwall.gov.uk .
Library Mobile Service - 3rd Tuesday every month:
Downderry Inn on Shore Car Park; 13.55 - 14.35pm
Seaton Car Park; 14.45 - 15.05pm
Memorial Gardens: Volunteer led gardening 1st Saturday Mar - Oct . contact tim.pullin@gmail.com
Police - nearest station: 4 Ferry St, Torpoint, PL121 2AZ. 0845 277 7444
Post Office Outreach Service Opening Hours. Downderry Stores. Every Tuesday and Friday. 1pm -3pm
St Nicolas PTA. stnicolasdownderrypta@gmail.com
