We are very proud to be part of Whiddon Valley - a very pleasant, relatively new, mixed residential/light industrial area nestling amongst beautiful woodland and open fields on the outskirts of Barnstaple, the regional centre of North Devon. Let's just take a look at our situation: Barnstaple, winner of "Entente Florale and Nations in Bloom 1996" boasts an excellent shopping centre and leisure facilities and is a popular centre for tourism; it lies on the borders of Exmoor National Park and provides easy access to some of the most breathtakingly spectacular coastlines in the South West. If you sum it all up, you couldn't really ask for a nicer place to live!

There has been evidence of limited community activity for some time with many areas belonging to Neighbourhood Watch schemes and individual micro-communities organising events such as rounders, football and barbecues. We are also very proud to have our own junior football team, Westacott Rangers. Recently the building of an exciting and innovative - even unique - community primary school has generated a flurry of excited community activity. This has resulted in the formation of an informal community group - people from widely varying backgrounds and age groups who feel passionately about the future of Whiddon Valley and its people - and also representatives of North Devon District Council and Devon County Council. This group will now formally be known as the Whiddon Valley Community Steering Group which will run in its present form for an initial period of one year, after which time it may be re-formed to respond more effectively to our community's needs.

From this appraisal, our short term targets are:

We plan to forward this document to the relevant agencies - so watch this space for future development! If the community feels strongly enough about an issue, we CAN do something about it! Clearly, you feel Whiddon Valley is finally coming together - it's going to be a brilliant place to live - our neighbouring communities are going to be green with envy!!!

We hope you will appreciate the time and effort this whole exercise has taken and apologise in advance for any possible misinterpretations - which are most certainly not intentional!

62 households expressed a need for alternative accommodation: 41 people deemed themselves as in need now, 44 would have a need within 3 years and 33 within 4-10 years. 12 of you identified a need for starter homes to buy, and 7 to rent; 21 identified a need for family homes to buy, 16 to rent; 3 identified a need for sheltered housing and 1 for residential care.