News in Sidmouth

The Conservatives lost control of East Devon District Council at last week's elections, in an unprecedented rout, which saw them lose a whopping 22 seats, reducing their numbers to just 18.

The Independents stormed to success with gains of 18 seats.

Sidmouth Chamber of Commerce works to promote, represent and lobby on behalf of the local business community and the High Street.

On April 9 we had our first committee meeting chaired by our new chairman David Cook.

As voters in Sidmouth prepare to go to the polls in tomorrow's local elections East Devon MP Hugo Swire has this to say:

The East Devon District Council local elections on Thursday are about your hard-working representatives.

Delivering leaflets to every house/bungalow/flat for the local elections has a strange side effect. Raw knuckles and a hatred of letterboxes. I can hear anyone who has had to deliver a lot shouting "YES!" as they read that.

Feel sorry for your postie and take a look at your own post receptacle. Do you have a letterbox? If so, is it obvious?

There has been a delay now for sometime in Devon on the implementation of fibre to home broadband. This means individual connections from the fibre cables in the road to each house.

A huge operation that was started by BT and in the past two years or so, operated by Gigaclear under the management of Connecting Devon and Somerset (Devon and Somerset County Councils).

After a very successful launch in 2018 Sidmouth Golf Club will be once again be running the Golf Academy, starting the week after Easter.

While everyone sees the elite players on TV, and the media coverage going with that, often overlooked are the amazing health benefits of the game.

Welcome to yet another 'Hughes on Nub News' and first of all a very topical subject… no not the B word.... but the C word, and in line with Devon recently declaring a Climate Emergency I have already thrown my weight behind the work undertaken by officers and Zapinamo in developing the bid for trials of on-street charge points in Exeter as a phase one and which would then hopefully lead to the phase two for Sidmouth, Exmouth and Dawlish.

These charge points would see them incorporating batteries to utilise renewable energy and reduce the demand on the network.

Civic pride sounds so old-fashioned, but is it out of date?

Like most residents, I love the scenery and atmosphere of this town but I don't love litter, weeds and general deterioration.

With a week to go before the end of the tax year you are up against it if you want to make best use of the tax allowances available to you. Here is a quick check list:

ISAs – individuals have an annual allowance of £20,000 to subscribe to ISAs. These can be in cash or stocks and shares. Help to Buy and Lifetime ISAs have restrictions on who can invest and on how much can be invested and form part of the £20k ISA allowance. Income is tax free and gains are capital gains tax free.

Sidmouth Chamber of Commerce works to promote, represent and lobby on behalf of the local business community and the High Street.

We held our AGM early in March when David Cook, former CEO of Sidmouth Donkey Sanctuary was elected Chairman. David said that some see doom and gloom for our High Street, but he sees it differently- an international picture with Sidmouth being such a lovely place.