Y OU may recall my mentioning the Bideford Sustainability Group which has been formed to examine what can be done to tackle the wasteful way in which our civilisation functions.

To this end they have secured Brigit Strawbridge to talk in the Baptist Church in Mill Street on Monday September 13 at 7.30pm. Brigit appeared on the TV programme It's Not Easy Being Green which recorded her family's effort to live a more sustainable life style at their farmhouse in Cornwall. She will be speaking on the best way to institute lifestyle changes — and will also be sharing her passion for bees. The group will be following this up with a meeting on Tuesday September 21 at 7.30pm in Bideford town hall.

FOR some time now officers of Torridge district council have been working with the Environment Agency to produce a detailed analysis of the flooding possibilities within Bideford.

The report has finally been issued and is available on the council website under the snappy heading Strategic Flood Risk Assessment 2. To anyone interested in the town it makes fascinating reading including as it does a whole series of colour maps, historical records and recommendations. The maps show the usual things like estimated flood hazard and even depths of water under different conditions for 1 in 100 year events but they include something I have never seen before – 1 in 1000 year flooding events. I bet you didn't know your council was looking towards 3010!

Of course my mind goes back to the infamous 1 in 100 year estimated failure of the Kenwith flood alleviation scheme, which failed very quickly and had to be altered. Six development sites in the town are examined in detail generating much food for thought. The Cattle Market, for example, has a "significant flood hazard across the majority of the site" — although the same phrase is used for all the sites which include the Sports Ground, the Pill, Brunswick Wharf, the southern end of New Road and Westcombe. Rather worryingly one risk for both the Cattle Market and the Sports Ground is the "failure of the Kenwith dam". I understand the currently silted-up lake in the Kenwith valley is to be dug out soon so this should alleviate the problem to an extent.

Perhaps the most interesting sections in the report are the recommendations for each site. Thus the Cattle Market should be reserved for "Water Compatible Development" and while moving the football ground here is ruled out what type of development is acceptable (including raised buildings) is not spelt out. The Kingsley Road site is similarly treated but I do note the sentence "The northern third of the site is one of the most sensitive areas to flooding in Bideford" plus the very strong assumption against retail development here, which creates major problems for the Joint Development team currently looking at building on the site.

Incidentally I have to reiterate that any money raised by selling the area has to be invested in providing similar sports facilities — it cannot be spent on any other developments. The Pill, if developed, would see any new building set back from what is called Pill Road though as other areas in the town are available the site would probably not pass the "Sequential Test", ie, building first on safest land and only exploiting sites such as these in the last resort or if they have something special to recommend them, an example being a harbour facility next to the river.

Perhaps the most surprising finding concerns Brunswick (and Clarence) Wharves where the flood hazard is restricted to the western margin of the site with the eastern half "at low risk of river flooding". This appears to make the site developable thus presenting Torridge with a possible cash windfall though nothing concrete is being proposed yet. Whether any such development includes the Kathleen & May is an unknown at present, though the disappearance of the car park (always designated to be "temporary") seems almost certain.

Westcombe has the oddest suggestion as to its future. Currently the Westcombe stream is carried under the area in a culvert which could be "opened up" to prevent ponding of water — and provide environmental benefits in the form of valuable wetland habitats.

I have only touched on the contents of the report, which covers other areas including Appledore, Westward Ho! and Torrington, and may well return to it again but as a guide to possible future developments in Bideford it is absolutely riveting.

Every six weeks Torridge councillors are informed about how the council's reserves and investments are performing in the very volatile world of high finance and we were heartened to hear that the "World banking system has stabilised" which, considering how much has been given to the bankers to sort out the mess they created in the first place, is just as well. One question still niggles me — where did the money all go?

As the district with the second lowest wages in England and Wales we are about to suffer cuts in services and a decline in government investment. Perhaps our MP would like to join me in a call for forensic accountants to be brought in to trace the money trail?

I suspect most of it has ended up in speculative property developments but someone must know these things.

It is public knowledge how local developments at Westward Ho! and the housing estate adjoining the new bridge in Bideford went wrong and where the money went, so why cannot the same approach, albeit scaled up, be adopted with regard to these far bigger cock ups? I would add that the Torridge financial figures do reveal an underspend of £179,000 on this year's budget for the period April 1 to June 25.