Saturday 20 June
I joined the highly knowledgeable members of the Devon Buildings Group on visits to two ancient manor houses. The first was Chambercombe in Ilfracombe, 13th century and later, now being restored in exemplary fashion by its new owners Helen Samuels and Tim Bland (both engineers by profession). I loved the story of how a stone mason working on one of the tall chimney stacks took a look at one of the other stacks and found his grandfather’s name graffitied on it to mark his restoration of it a century ago. The highlight of West Challacombe Manor, above Combe Martin - now a National Trust holiday let - is the late 15th century ceiling (photo above). I was startled to find these two hermaphrodites (below) carved in wood on the front door
Sunday 21 June
Council work continued on the Sabbath: I reported to Highways that a cable between two telephone poles had come down beside the road below Hannaford House. This morning a resident in Mount Sandford Road rang me to complain about a boy racer who can’t stop tearing up and down that road at all hours. I alerted the police and arranged for our Community Speedwatch team to be there later this week.
Monday 22 June
We beat the heat by starting early, putting up the signs for Poetry in the Park in Swimbridge - photo above shows David Netherway, who thought up this delightful project. We hope to have a launch event next month with children from the primary school - who contributed six haikus - and members of the North Devon Poetry Stanza who kindly allowed us to share their nature poems. In the afternoon I took part in a Licensing sub-committee meeting called to consider an application from a restaurant in Woolacombe. I think our decision - approval with conditions was fair.
Tuesday 23 June
Starting at 9am, we finished putting up the posts for Poetry in the Park. Then we began removing the docks that have sprung up in the wildflower meadow. The primary school sports day tomorrow has wisely been cancelled. Driving home, I met a BT engineer on his way to fix the fallen cable I had reported to Highways on Sunday morning. At 11 I had a Teams meeting on the next Joint Local Plan for northern Devon. I’ll post a link to the Public Consultation when I get it next week. After lunch I went to the council offices for a pre-application meeting with planners and applicants for a large and significant site on the outskirts of Barnstaple area. In the Guardian this morning, Owen Jones said much of what I think about Keir Starmer -
Like all the other commentators I have heard or read, Jones missed out Labour’s Local Government Reorganisation - not in its manifesto, of course - which will bring us the lowest democratic accountability in Europe. Devon will be told by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government how we are to be governed in a few weeks time. Jones and others also left out changes to the planning system, which will also weaken local decision-making. The BBC interviewed Farage this morning but didn’t challenge him on his crackpot Twerp-based views on climate change and net zero: as this dangerous heatwave continues, this was surely dereliction of duty. No wonder there are moves for the BBC’s irresponsible treatment of climate change to be scrutinised in a Judicial Review. Even BBCTV’s World Cup coverage is cringeworthy.
England 0 Ghana 0 - a hard watch. Would it have been different if Rashford had started?
Wednesday 24 June
Another heatwave day. Finished pulling docks from the Wildflower Meadow in Swimbridge Park by 9.45. A car-boot full went off as green waste. On my way home I found an Airband engineer arriving to deal with the downed fibre cable I reported to Highways on Sunday. He told me that BT’s copper cable and an Airband fibre one had both been brought down by falling branches - which had fallen into the road. Over a thousand phone accounts had been affected. I rang the Highways emergency number when I got home: I was notified at 1625 that the problem had been dealt with.
Photo by Brian Garman: Vigil Week 136 and 23 of us braved the intense heat. Gazans face the same temperatures but without proper shelter in most cases, without air con and even reliable supplies of drinking water. The cruelty, on a Biblical level of extremity, continues without signs of outrage from countries who could stop it.
Thursday 25 June
The latest issue of Private Eye arrived, bringing this brilliant riposte to the UK’s witless Drill, Baby, Drill crowd:
Thanks so much to the Waste and Recycling teams who picked up as usual despite the heatwave. There’s so much I want to do in the garden but I’ve had to stay indoors. I worked on talks I’m giving in the autumn. I also checked out Andy Burnham’s record on city planning in Greater Manchester via Thaura, the ethical ai. I worked at Manchester Art Gallery in 1969-70 and last visited the city in September 2024. All the villages I knew well in southern Manchester, from Rusholme to Didsbury, have now merged into one sprawling strip. This is bad ‘Place Making’, which planning should control. Also, the skyline has been brutalised like London’s (under mayors Livingstone and Johnson). Thaura informs me that ‘The numbers are striking: roughly fifty city-centre towers were built in the five years leading up to 2023, with another fifty planned or under construction’ (source: Manchester Evening News). Also: ‘The core issue isn't just quantity but quality and distribution. If the towers primarily deliver luxury investment properties and student housing while affordable housing lags, and if they degrade street-level experience through wind, shadowing, and car-heavy infrastructure, then the case for "too many" gains weight. If, however, they include meaningful affordable components, integrate well with public transport, and contribute to a vibrant mixed-use city centre, the argument shifts. Currently, the balance seems tilted toward the former, which is why public resentment is so pronounced’. I am not a fan of mayors, who seem to have too much power and prioritise ‘growth’ - regardless of the lives of residents - in order to advance their own political careers. Joseph Stiglitz and others recently published an article on growth as a doomed strategy: ‘Growth has become decoupled from shared prosperity. It has also become ecologically unsustainable’. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/10/economists-maths-growth-doomed-strategy-un-agencies-political-leaders
Friday 26 June
The economic theme continued this evening with a visit from Sheridan Kates, a new Green Party cllr in Islington (above). We watched a lively film on Modern Monetary Theory and had a good Q&A afterwards with Sheridan, who is impressively well-informed. She is part of a group, with North Devon Green Party’s Netti Pearson, working on proposals for a new economic policy for the party.
Wildlife: I follow the superb nature writer Mark Cocker on social media. He recently posted that he had counted 700 species at his property in Derbyshire. I feel that our garden might well harbour a similar number, including the tiny bright yellow insect that happened to walk entrancingly over my hand and then my book as I read in our summerhouse a few days ago. Some of my favourite wildflowers are now in bloom, including Fox and Cubs (photo above), Meadowsweet and Purple Loosestrife.
A book recommendation - an extraordinary exposé of Facebook / Meta by a really engaging writer. Careless people? Too right. Thank you for reading CLLR MHB BLOG.
