Village offers euro for the pound

Click title for full article, best clip from it is:

"I think there is a great market in Europe. England is a lot cheaper now, there's a new horizon where they can explore England at a lower cost. It's a wonderful opportunity for UK tourism."

Where is this place? Dunster, North Somerset...not a million miles from here.

Plans unveiled to support firms

OK not East Devon (as an aside EDDC has a business "champion" somewhere in its org), no this is Teignbridge DC...click title for full article, but here's the intro...

A Devon council could offer free parking as part of a plan to help firms cope with the economic downturn.

A Credit Crunch Commission, set up by Teignbridge District Council with private and voluntary organisations, came up with a range of measures.

Among them are free or reduced parking charges, financial counselling and increased promotion of help services.

The commission also proposes providing new allotments to enable more people to grow their own food.

Pound buying less than a euro

OK, what's this got to do with us?
For whatever reason (discuss in the comments if you like!) the pound has now hit parity to the euro...at least as far as tourists are concerned. The cumulative effect of the credit crunch is that any UK resident who might be going on holiday next year has two stark choices...go abroad and take the exchange rate hit, or holiday in the UK. (ok I leave out the do neither option)
East Devon is uniquely placed as a holiday destination with the jurassic coast on the doorstep and open countryside on the other. Seaton (of course) will not be in a position to capitalise on this..wonder if EDDC, SWRDA and SW Tourism can help out...

..ahem..meanwhile, for those interested in the euro, and say have an old keybaord on the pc, the "€" symbol is either (hold together)Ctrl-Alt-4 or Alt- and type "0128" on the numeric keypad, thus proving there is a workaround to most things, if people in the know commit themselves.