Christmas skating rink coming to Torquay

But other bay projects get a rough ride

Plans for an ice rink as part of the Christmas celebrations in Torquay have taken another stride forward.

The £40,000 skating rink is on a list of projects being launched by Torbay council after it discovered an unexpected £350,000 in the bank.

Careful housekeeping meant the council had the money left over at the end of the financial year, so it has drawn up a list of things to spend it on.

Apart from the ice rink, they include spending £50,000 on a regular newspaper going out to people around the bay, £81,000 on the ‘Operation Brighter Bay’ spruce-up and £40,000 to improve the way town centre CCTV works.

Not all of the proposals were as popular among members as the skating rink, which glided through without argument.

Opposition Liberal Democrat and independent councillors put forward an amendment, saying spending £50,000 on a ‘generic newspaper’ was not cost effective, and cutting trees at Castle Circus to improve CCTV ‘sight lines’ should be SWISCo’s job and just £10,000 should be spent there.

They said more money should be spent in Brixham, and more should go towards the bay’s sports pitches.

Cllr Cordelia Law (Lib Dem, Tormohun) told Conservative members: “CCTV won’t solve the issues of social deprivation at Castle Circus, among the people you seek to demonise. What we need is homes for these people.”

But Cllr Nick Bye (Con, Wellswood) said he could not understand why the opposition wanted to cut the amount spent on CCTV. “Our residents want to feel safe in our town centre,” he said. “We want to make Castle Circus somewhere that people enjoy visiting.”

And Cllr Martin Brook (Con, Collaton St Mary) said his priorities were for the safety of people across Torbay.

Cllr Chris Lewis (Con, Preston) said putting out a newsletter four times a year would help the council communicate with local people, but Cllr Darren Cowell (Ind, Shiphay) said handing out a ‘politically-inspired’ newspaper would be a waste of public money and the council should be supporting local community magazines instead.

“The signal I’m getting is that we don’t care about our communities,” he said.

Council leader David Thomas (Con, Preston) said: “There are councils across the country that would love to be in this situation. Their conversations are about what else they are going to cut, while we are talking about allocating additional money.

“I am delighted that we are going to be putting money into events, and particularly into the skating rink. More than a million people came to see our Bay of Lights at Christmas last year, and with the rink I think that will bring more and more people.

“This is a good news story.”