New Year resolution

My New Year Resolution is to keep plugging away at all those organizations (EDDC, DCC, SWRDA and others) who resolutely seem to want to believe that either Seaton does not exist, or, if it does, needs no help from them. We need their help, they are supposed to be there to help us - we pay our taxes so that they can help us.

I sit and watch coastal towns around us improve in leaps and bounds. West Bay is now about to attract another celebrity chef, Lyme has had so much investment from Dorset County Council it makes me want to weep, other coastal towns in Devon and Cornwall have dragged themselves up by the bootstraps and have become attractive tourist venues.

And poor Seaton? Fifty - maybe a hundred - years of non-investment. Now designated as one of twelve towns in Devon which needs extra help because of its deprivation, particularly worklessness. No community facilities - no youth club (though thanks to Councillor Sophie O'Connell at least a youth venue at The Grove), no community centre, no arts facility, no indoor sports facility - even only one football pitch for more than a dozen teams (so bad that home games have to be played in Sidford!).

It's no use bemoaning how or why we got to this situation - we have to get out of it. But we can't do it alone (how I wish that we could!). So, each and every one of us has to badger those whose job it is to help us to ensure that they do.

Let's start with Devon County Council. They now have the £48 million windfall from the sale of Exeter Airport. So, DCC - you are responsible for youth in this town - let's see you wheedle out of that one. And you own the road on the seafront which we want to have pedestrianised. What's the excuse this time.

Get out your pens and write to EVERYONE who needs to know that Seaton is here and that Seaton wants action!