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Friday 2 October 2015

Plans for Port Royal: anticipatimg a Regeneration Board

Seaton has its Regeneration Board:
Seaton Regeneration Programme Board - East Devon
30 March 2015 - Seaton continues to thrive - East Devon

Trinitymatters.co.uk website of Cllr Ian Thomas EDDC - Displaying items by tag: Seaton Regeneration Board
SEATON: ‘Clear progress’ on regeneration | Pulman's View from Seaton


Exmouth has its Regeneration Board:

Exmouth Regeneration Programme Board - East Devon
Regeneration projects in Exmouth - East Devon
Exmouth vision - East Devon

However, these bodies are not terribly transparent:
minutes of the Exmouth regeneration board - a Freedom of Information request to East Devon District Council - WhatDoTheyKnow
Why is regeneration in East Devon always secret? | East Devon Watch


Comment on the EDW blog yesterday asked:

“REGENERATION PLANS AND MEETINGS” – ARE THEY WORTH THE EFFORT

1 Oct 2015

A correspondent writes:

“For years Exmouth and Seaton have had regeneration areas and Regeneration Boards. Until recently, all the Regeneration Board meetings were secret – now they are published but often with redacted parts.

But are these meetings, Boards, plans, consultations worth the bother?

Seaton’s regeneration area began life with a relatively small supermarket, housing, community and leisure facilities and a hotel, with 40% affordable housing in a total of over 400 houses. What they got was an enormous Tesco, less than 300 houses and no affordable homes.

Exmouth is now going the same way: it started as a purely seafront-themed “upgrading” but changed into expensive housing and cloned businesses.

So, we must ask ourselves: what were all these plans, meetings and consultations actually FOR? What we are ending up with on both sites is nothing like what was initially planned, or discussed or consulted on.

Regeneration Boards are top-heavy with the developers on each site, who appear to use them to push forward their plans, unchallenged either by councillors or officers – in fact, the total opposite, leaving said officers and councillors to ram through their development agendas.

Surely, this makes a total mockery of our officers, councillors and Regeneration Boards but, more importantly, the electors of East Devon, who were sold pups – coincidentally just before two major district elections.


“Regeneration plans and meetings” – are they worth the effort | East Devon Watch

In the light of proposals for 'redeveloping' a car park in Sidmouth

Futures Forum: The District Council, developing Mill Street in Sidmouth ... and transparency

... concerns about a possible 'redevelopment' of the whole of the eastern end of Sidmouth have been expressed on the front page of today's Herald:



Sidmouth Herald: ‘War’ cry over future of eastern town

Written by East Devon Alliance on 2-Oct-2015. Posted in Cathy Gardner


Anger at plans to redevelop a car park for social housing is a ‘battle’ that risks distracting residents from the ‘war’ over eastern town, a representative has warned.

East Devon District Council (EDDC) member Councillor Cathy Gardner said that the authority owns much more land that could be targeted – and Sidmouth could end up with unwanted developments like in Seaton or Exmouth if people do not speak out.

She and Cllr Marianne Rixson are launching a consultation to give residents and businesses a say on what they want – and what they do not.

“This isn’t about the Mill Street car park – it’s about the whole of the eastern side of town,” said Cllr Gardner. “It’s to do with plans for Port Royal and the seafront. Everyone can get excited about the rights and wrongs of increasing parking charges, but it’s part of a bigger picture.

“EDDC owns a lot of land there and I don’t know if people are aware of how much – the lifeboat station, the Drill Hall and the sailing club are all in the Local Plan for development.

“It also owns the car parks – and all of that potentially could be sold off.”

EDDC last month revealed proposals to redevelop its Mill Street car park.

The authority has drawn up proposals to build affordable housing on the ‘under-performing’ asset. It was accused of orchestrating the situation – but Cllr Gardner said the town was at risk of ‘fighting a battle but losing the war’.

“Eastern town is rough around the edges, but some of that is likely to be deliberate,” she said. “There’s also the beach management plan and any lack of progress there.

“When you look at the bigger picture, things start to make sense. In Exmouth, small businesses seem to have been driven out because they wanted to redevelop the seafront, but for whose benefit? Exmouth didn’t seem to want a Premier Inn. Look at Seaton – there’s no affordable housing, but they got a huge Tesco.

“People need to be aware of how plans can snowball – otherwise EDDC will roll on and it will be done before you know it.

“We’re going to consult and listen to what’s right for Sidmouth. There’s a huge amount of land up for grabs. We need to be speaking out for the people of Sidmouth.”

EDDC’s policy in its draft Local Plan is to ‘promote a mixed-use redevelopment of the east end and Drill Hall site on The Esplanade’. The area is allocated for 30 homes.

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