Beach Management Plan: an independent assessment of the cost of proposals presented by consultants

There is a lot of debate going on around what to do to protect Sidmouth from the sea:
Futures Forum: Beach Management Plan: "fight for information"
Futures Forum: Beach Management Plan: "We have to tell our Councillors how we want to move Sidmouth forward without wrecking it."
Futures Forum: Beach Management Plan: "We cannot and will not request that expert advice is altered because some stakeholders are not getting the answers they wish to hear."
Futures Forum: Beach Management Plan: Option 4b or not 4b >>> >>> >>> or: how to ignore everyone else's opinion

This letter was in the latest Herald, sent in a personal capacity, is published with permission:

Sir,

After more than ten years of widespread public concern, the 1% turnout for the consultation on Sidmouth's new Beach Management Plan is disappointing. Is it due to consultation fatigue or public apathy?

Or could it possibly be due to poor publicity for a poorly presented and ill-prepared half day event?

The public were offered four choices involving concrete and granite that would in due course make Sidmouth a precarious promontory, its shoreline receding to the east and west, a hostage to the extremes of climate change.

The day after the "consultation" the local Steering Group met (following a four month delay) to discover that their preferred option was not among the four offered to the public.

Option 4(b) was then cobbled together after the event, and subsequently endorsed by the Town Council.

I understand that several experts and local organisations who had given their time to advise the Steering Group resigned in disgust at the process.

It is worth remembering that EDDC failed to participate in the 2011 Environment Agency's fact-finding study of Jurassic Coast management options. Sidmouth was represented by local volunteers whose recommendations, based on Dorset's experience, have been repeatedly ignored or dismissed.

Is it not time for an independent audit of EDDC expenditure on years of "investigations"; and an independent assessment of the cost of proposals presented by consultants employed, at our expense, by EDDC?

Robert Crick, Sidmouth


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See also:

Futures Forum: Beach Management Plan: Town Council chooses breakwaters to protect and regenerate beach >>> further reports
Futures Forum: Beach Management Plan: Town Council chooses breakwaters to protect and regenerate beach
Futures Forum: Beach Management Plan: "It is very important to get comments in: the public is in a very strong position to comment on which option it believes will deliver the best seafront for the town - and DEFRA will take that into consideration."
Futures Forum: Beach Management Plan: public consultation 15th June and Steering Group meeting 16th JuneFutures Forum: Beach Management Plan: compiling a short list of options
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