Category Archives: News
Playing Field news – New shelter celebration postponed for a week
The Brentor Playing Field rejuvenation project is moving forward.
The new shelter building is being installed and will now be ready by 16th November, a week later than expected, so please keep your dogs on a lead in the field and keep away from the construction work.
You are invited to join the Village Hall and Playing Field Committee to celebrate on SATURDAY 16TH NOVEMBER between 2.00pm and 4.00pm. PLEASE NOTE THIS NEW DATE, A WEEK LATER THAN EXPECTED!
Hot and cold refreshments will be provided to say thank you for all your support. So come and see the new shelter and hear our proposals for the other facilities. The Committee would love to see you and hear what you think of their future plans for the Playing Field.
Several grant applications are in progress to help with the cost of the shelter, the toilet and seating/picnic benches. Updates on the progress of these applications will be posted in the Village Hall and on this website.
If you want more information, or can help in any way, please contact Clare Percival on 810322
Brentor News is 40!
The November 2019 issue of Brentor News, number 480, is a special edition to celebrate 40 years of continuous production for our village newspaper. It includes an anniversary feature to mark the event. Thank you to everyone who is involved in editing the newspaper each month!
The editing team is looking for a new recruit so, if you are familiar with a desk-top publishing package such as Word, Publisher, Pages, InDesign etc and can spare a few hours about once every three months, then they would love to hear from you. The task is rewarding in itself – and you would be contributing to village life! Please get in touch with any of the editorial team listed below:
Jane Phelpstead 810635 – croakytoad97@gmail.com
Sue Fraser 811097 – swhitfraser@gmail.com
John Wheeler 810083 – ajw@brentor.net
Mike Whitfield – brentorcommons@btinternet.com
Click here to go to our Brentor News page to see the 40th anniversary edition of Brentor News
Brentor Calendar and cards for 2020
Parish Council grants to local organisations – apply now!
As in previous years the Parish Council will consider including a sum within its budget for supporting local organisations. If your organisation is thinking of asking the Parish Council for a grant then please contact the Parish Clerk by the 30th November with the following information.
– Purpose for which a grant is required.
– Budgeted income and expenditure for the current financial year.
– Report on the use of any previous Parish Council grant.
Parish Clerk, Mrs Caroline Oxenham
1 Abbotsfield Crescent, Tavistock, Devon, PL19 8EY
Tel: 01822 481415 or 07846 573678 (Monday to Friday), email: brentorpc@yahoo.co.uk
Stunning photos of Brentor
Rob Stillwell, a photographer from Plymouth, has allowed us to publish some of his beautiful photographs of Brentor under the stars on this website.
Click here to go the Brentor Gallery page to see more of Rob’s work
Ash dieback disease is spreading
Community Housing latest
Brentor Parish Council released the following statement on 18th July 2019:
PROPOSED HOUSING
Figures have now been collated from the Housing Needs Survey conducted in July 2018 and the 2 public presentation days.
The presentations were very well attended and figures show that the development is oversubscribed by local people who will be eligible to live there.
The latest data indicates a need for 11 affordable homes and 6 open market homes, which meet the criteria for an affordable development as required by WDBC and DNPA. The planned development remains fixed at 12 properties.
Further progress has been slightly delayed due to the recent elections, but it is understood that the plans will be submitted to DNPA shortly with a planning decision expected in September. Construction should then commence late Autumn or early next year.
Further information will be published as and when it is received.
Traffic speeding in Brentor
The Parish Council is trying to organise a meeting with the County Council Highways department about local concerns regarding the speeding of traffic through our village.
The current speed limit throughout the village is 60mph, which is clearly too fast for many of our roads. If you have witnessed traffic obviously travelling too fast through Brentor please contact Caroline Oxenham, Parish Clerk, by emailing her at brentorpc@yahoo.co.uk .
A Brentor Inn memory
In response to this website’s request for memories of the Brentor Inn during its heyday, (scroll down the page to see this), Francesca Bell has sent this photo.
She writes: “Just having a lovely read of your Brentor Village page and thought you may like this photo. It’s at the then Brentor Inn the day of my younger brother’s christening about 1968. My dad in the background, Eric Doidge, farmer at Cross Trees Farm South Brentor, my Mum Celia (a Brentorian, I’ve memorabilia from then – original programmes and photographs), then there is my sister Beverley, my brother Ashley, myself Francesca and my grandmother Ethel May Scott (formerly of the Fox and Hounds).
Many a cherryade had on that day by the look of it!
Regards Francesca Bell (nee Doidge) “
If you also have any memories of the Brentor Inn we would be pleased to hear from you.
Where next for Brentor broadband?
NEWS
The Government is introducing a Universal Service Obligation (USO) for broadband provision and is aiming for this to be in place by 2020 at the latest. This should apply to Brentor residents who cannot receive an Airband signal and who currently have less than 10mbs broadband download speed. Below is the House of Commons Library Briefing that details the Government’s plans to introduce a Universal Service Obligation (USO) for broadband. It was published on June 5, 2018.
What is the broadband USO?
The UK Government is introducing a Universal Service Obligation (USO) for broadband. The new USO is a UK-wide measure to deliver broadband connections to the hardest to reach premises in the UK. It is intended to fill the gap left by the UK Government’s existing broadband roll-out programs.
The USO will provide a legal right to request a broadband connection of at least 10 megabits per second (Mbps) download speed. Eligible consumers and businesses will be able to request a connection under the USO and a Universal Service Provider(s) will be required to fulfil all requests up to a cost threshold of £3,400. The USO will be funded by industry through a cost-sharing fund.
The USO is underpinned by secondary legislation made under the Digital Economy Act 2017, and will be implemented by Ofcom. The Digital Economy Act allows for the Government to review the USO and to increase the minimum speed. There was broad cross-party and consumer support for the introduction of a statutory USO for broadband in general, but there were mixed views from industry stakeholders as to how universal access to broadband should be delivered.
Technical specifications
The minimum technical standards for connections made under the USO will be:
- Minimum download speed of 10 Mbps.
- Minimum upload speed of 1 Mbps.
- Additional quality parameters: medium response times, a minimum data cap of 100 GBs and a contention rate of 50:1 (which means a maximum of 50 users to share one bandwidth).
A mix of technologies that meet the minimum specifications will be used to deliver the service. In 2016 Ofcom advised that satellite connections will probably be the only option for some consumers (approx. 0.2%) but may not be able to fulfil the additional quality parameters.
When will the USO be implemented?
The Government is aiming for the USO to be in place by 2020 at the latest. Secondary legislation was laid in Parliament in March 2018, and came into force on 23 April 2018. Ofcom has responsibility to implement the USO and that process is expected to take up to two years. Several factors need to be finalised, such as the designation of a universal service provider, and the design of an industry cost-sharing fund. Ofcom’s first document on the USO implementation is expected in summer 2018.
How many premises will be eligible?
Ofcom reported that as of January 2018, 925,000 premises in the UK (3%) would qualify for the USO based on the proposed technical specifications.
The USO will be available only to those consumers that do not have access to broadband connections that fulfil the minimum standards, not those who have such a connection available but choose not to subscribe to it. The number of premises covered by the USO will ultimately depend on the number of consumers that register.
So that is where those of us without Airband access are at the moment. If anyone in Brentor has further information please do contact the website Editor, Colin Dawes, at colinvdawes@btinternet.com. It might well be worth lobbying Geoffrey Cox MP to ensure that the Government’s commitment to the USO (Universal Service Obligation)is actually implemented by 2020 as promised!
For more information about how this issue has evolved click here
You can still check your broadband speed by clicking here. (Just click the button marked ‘Start Speed Test’ below the two dials).
Colin Dawes, Editor