At rather short notice, West Devon Borough Council has organised a drop-in session to be held at Brentor Village Hall from 1.00pm to 3.00pm on Saturday 17th November 2018. The Council released the information below on facebook at about 3.30pm on Monday 12th November 2018. Alex Rehaag from West Devon Borough Council’s housing team will be on hand to answer visitors’ questions.
If you want to find information about earlier proposals for affordable housing in Brentor click here.
Category Archives: News
Review of the Dartmoor National Park Management Plan – have your say
Dartmoor National Park Management Plan is currently under review – click here to see the plan. This is the single most important plan for the future of Dartmoor National Park. It is a strategic plan which sets out the long-term ‘Vision’ for the next 20 years, and guides decisions affecting Dartmoor’s future over the coming five years. It is not to be confused with the Local Plan, also currently under review, which sets out planning policies for Dartmoor, identifies how land is used and determines what will be built where.
As part of the Management Plan review, Dartmoor National Park Authority has launched a survey to collect the public’s views about priorities and issues for Dartmoor National Park – you can find this by clicking here – and you should respond by 5pm on Friday 30 November. The National Park is not asking Parish and Town Councils to respond formally at this stage, so our comments should be important in setting the tone of the review. Much of Brentor is within the Dartmoor National Park, so this really is a chance to have your say about how our surroundings are managed.
If you have any questions you should contact Sassie Tickle, an Assistant Forward Planner at the Dartmoor National Park Authority, tel 01626 831053.
Brentor and the First World War
To mark the centenary of the end of the First World War Brentor Archive Group has done a huge amount of work to research what happened in Brentor during WWI. Irene Cradick has researched the lives and service of local men who died in the war and who are listed on the Brentor War Memorial. She has also brought together many other accounts of those who survived the war – all this makes fascinating and poignant reading.
The results of her research on those who lost their lives can be seen by clicking here.
Heather planted on Bowden Down
Three hundred native heather plants were planted on Bowden Down by about a dozen volunteers after the village coffee morning on 6 October. The plants were purchased using a grant from Brentor Parish Council. 
This planting is part of the project to regenerate the Down and bring it back to its original habitat of lowland heath. More work will continue this autumn and winter in conjunction with the Tavistock Taskforce, using funding received from the Co-op Good Causes Fund.
Results of the Playing Field Survey
Last December Brentor village residents were invited to fill in a survey asking for comments and suggestions for the future of the Brentor playing field.
Disappointingly, only 20 responses were received. The results of the survey were as follows:
50% asked for the field to have more of a community feel with seating, barbeque and toilets installed
35% suggested relocating the field closer to the village hall (if possible)
5% suggested selling the land for affordable housing
5% suggested leaving it as it is
5% wanting the committee to decide.
Over the last few months this has led to some lengthy deliberations by the committee, to discuss the way forward based on the results.
What happens next?
Based on the results, the committee has been looking at external shelters, compost toilets and seating to enable it to take things forward. It will require some fundraising and looking into grants available.
How can you help?
Would you like to get involved in making our playing field a more usable, sociable place? If you have ideas for fundraising, can help with applying for grants, or have further suggestions/comments or even wish to make a donation, please contact Sheryl, tel 870554, email sheryl_burroughs@hotmail.com or Clare, tel 810322, email mrsclarep@gmail.com .
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
