Our priorities focus on four areas – Planning and Housing; Community Resilience; Regeneration of the Town; and the Climate Crisis. These are ambitious yet achievable targets, that we will work on collaboratively with Councillors, community groups, local businesses, and residents.
PLANNING AND HOUSING
The District Council is the Planning authority and has a Local Plan in place that directs all housing and business building for the next fifteen years. The Town Planning committee is routinely sidelined and ignored, even though it is representative of the views of residents. LIFT Councillors will work to ensure that residents’ views are given greater weight. We will hold MDDC to higher standards of scrutiny, ensure that developers deliver more affordable housing, and that s106 payments benefit the town.
LIFT will campaign for the closure of MDDC’s 3Rivers Development company, full repayment of all public monies loaned to the organisation, and accountability for the decisions made at both Officer and Cabinet level. Planning decisions should be guided by community need, not by MDDC greed.
Cowleymoor from the air
REGENERATION OF THE TOWN
We believe that Tiverton Town Council should control the publicly owned assets in the Town, rather than Mid Devon District Council. Assets including parks, property, public toilets, and open spaces should be managed for the good of the Town. We will work to return these assets to the Town, ensuring that the finances to secure and maintain them comes with them.
We should look to invest the Town Council’s reserves into the purchase of properties in the town centre which have derelict living space above and bring this back into use as social housing. We could then offer the retail space at affordable rent to start up Tiverton businesses. We will also work on a presumption that empty town sites should be available for community use.
Fore St, Tiverton
COMMUNITY RESILIENCE
We will continue to organise the Town Council to support local people through the cost-of-living crisis. We have ensured there is now a Community Resilience committee dedicated to supporting and coordinating the local voluntary sector and would continue to make this a priority. Through this committee we will create a Poverty Strategy for Tiverton, with the aim of eliminating poverty within the town by 2030.
Our work with local groups and other government agencies will continue, as we co-ordinate community resilience including defense against flooding and natural disasters.
Lunch on the Go at Lowman Green
CLIMATE CRISIS
We will ensure that green issues are put at the heart of our work for the town. Our members organised the Town Council to declare a climate emergency, and to launch a Climate Committee to promote working towards making Tiverton a carbon neutral town. Over the next four years we will:
Transform green travel options for all areas of the Town, including safe and accessible walking and cycle routes
Bring empty sites into use as community open spaces, with tree planting and rewilding
Co-ordinate the development of hydroelectric power for community benefit
Develop more allotment and community growing sites
Work with all Tiverton schools to create a Green Plan for Tiverton
Tackling plastic at Tesco in Tiverton