We've recently had our annual meeting to elect a councillor to chair the authority and represent us around the county.

 

I'm delighted to say that this year it will be Percy Prowse from Exeter with Colin Slade from Tiverton as his deputy.

 

The annual meeting also confirmed the nine members of the Cabinet with me as leader. Among them we have Andrea Davis and Andrew Saywell representing northern Devon and Phil Twiss and Stuart Hughes from the east of the county.

 

I was very honoured to be chosen to lead Devon again. Like other members of the Cabinet, I have lived and worked here all my life and raised my family here.

 

So we are all invested in Devon and we all want the very best for our county and its people.

 

There may be arguments between political parties and, indeed, within parties as to what that entails.

 

But for this administration it is about continuing to improve our economy and ensuring a decent quality of living for as many people as possible with Green growth, solving our housing crisis and making sure there are local homes for local people, boosting the skills of people already working here as well as our young people and preserving our wonderful environment and reducing our carbon emissions.

 

Indeed the terrible floods in Tipton St John and Newton Poppleford have brought into very clear focus how important it is for us to tackle climate change and for Devon to fufil its pledge to be net zero carbon by 2030.

 

These are all clear aspirations that will take time to achieve but many of you may be asking what we are going to do about dealing with the potholes on our roads.

I've said here before that the torrential rain and freezing cold that we suffered this winter is the worst possible combination of weather for our roads.

 

The rain gets into the road, freezes and then thaws and breaks up the surface. Similar weather cycles then make it worse.

 

So we've devoted extra resources from our own hard-pressed budget into the repairs. We've also pledged to spend every penny of the extra £9.4 million the Government has now allocated for Devon on improving the highway network and making sure our roads are more resilient.

 

Now we seem to be over the worst of this awful cold and wet start to 2023, I believe we can demonstrate we're tackling your immediate concerns with 89 per cent of reported potholes being repaired within a day, seven days or 28 days depending on severity.

 

As for the long term priorities, the next meeting of Team Devon early in June will welcome some returning district council leaders and some new faces after this month's elections.

 

In partnership with Plymouth and Torbay, we have a clear set of proposals for devolution for Devon which the Government has signalled it welcomes and I hope we can make swift progress on getting a deal over the line.

 

There is real strength in our unity, which the Government has recognised, and by working together we can achieve much more for the people of Devon.

It’s about us coming together to have one voice and being a credible partner with national Government and others to be able to get investment and development, having more power and influence on funding and decision-making locally.

It is also above politics. Our proposals are backed by Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and non-aligned council leaders. We all want the best we can achieve for Devon.