EVENT  ⁄  COMMUNITY & SOCIETY

St Leonard's Christmas Fair

Community-run market returns for eleventh year with festive food, music and gifts.

St Leonard’s Christmas Fair is returning to Magdalen Road on Saturday 3 December for its eleventh year.

The road will close to traffic and instead provide space for 50 stalls selling gifts, food and drink.

Bricks and mortar retailers will also open their doors and sell food and wares outside their shopfronts.

There will be live music from five acts who will play festive music through the afternoon.

St Leonard's Christmas Fair Saturday 3 December 2022 Magdalen Road St Leonard’s Christmas Fair on Magdalen Road

The St Leonard’s Neighbourhood Association has held the Magdalen Road Christmas Fair every year since 2011, except in 2020 because of the pandemic. It routinely attracts thousands of visitors.

It was formed following efforts by local residents to protect Bull Meadow Park from the construction of Western Way, and has been active for half a century.

Today it promotes community activities and publishes a neighbourhood news booklet which it delivers to 3,200 local addresses every two months.

The St Leonard’s Christmas Fair takes place at 2-6pm on Saturday 3 December in Magdalen Road.

For more information visit the St Leonard’s Neighbourhood Association website.

 is membership co-ordinator and community & culture editor of Exeter Observer and a director of its publisher Exeter Observer Limited.

Community share offer
Community share offer
Exeter in brief
Exeter in brief

SOUTH WEST WATER owner Pennon Group has increased its shareholder dividend by nearly 11% to £112 million despite making a pre-tax loss of £8.5 million and being fined £2.15 million after pleading guilty to thirteen environmental offences committed across Devon and Cornwall. CEO Susan Davy said the company, which also owns Bristol Water, had “delivered improvements in environmental performance”

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SOUTH WEST WATER owner Pennon Group has increased its shareholder dividend by nearly 11% to £112 million despite making a pre-tax loss of £8.5 million and being fined £2.15 million after pleading guilty to thirteen environmental offences committed across Devon and Cornwall. CEO Susan Davy said the company, which also owns Bristol Water, had “delivered improvements in environmental performance”

EXETER CITY COUNCIL member’s allowances and expenses came to a total of £409,000 in the year to March 2023, with council leader Phil Bialyk claiming £28,400 and receiving gifts and hospitality at Sandy Park stadium.

The city council has agreed to allow four music concerts at SANDY PARK STADIUM in June with up to 15,000 people in attendance, tickets for which have already been on sale for two months. Its planning committee heard accounts of extreme anti-social behaviour by visitors attending events at the venue as well as other adverse impacts on local residents and imposed traffic and parking, noise, litter and opening and closing time restrictions on the concerts.

An Ofsted monitoring report on DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL CHILDREN’S SERVICES, the fifth since the local authority was judged inadequate in January 2020, has found that the “quality of social work practice across Devon remains inconsistent”. Inspectors found “pockets of better practice” and “some positive changes” but said that weak management oversight, insufficient challenge and poor care planning all continue to cause problems. It also said a high turnover rate in agency social work staff, who make up more than 40% of the workforce, is having an adverse impact.

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