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Councillor
Christie's Weblog
From your Torridge District Councillor Peter Christie
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13th Sept '09
This month’s full Torridge district council meeting was dominated by a presentation from Sally Nelson and Peter Quincey who are the project managers overseeing the latest ideas to regenerate Bideford (and Ilfracombe and Holsworthy!) The two have been funded for 3 years by the South West Regional Development Agency, TDC, North Devon Council and Devon county and their remit in Bideford is to come up with some achievable schemes for the town’s ‘famous five’ main development sites. Sensibly, given that four of the five are presently ‘blighted’ by government imposed limitations about building on the flood plain, they are concentrating on the Bridge Street car parks. Only one of these is owned by Torridge but Sally and Peter have ‘engaged robustly’ with Chope’s management the owners of the other one. They are now producing a Site Development Brief to identify exactly what could go on the site in terms of use, massing, height etc in the expectation that this will make the site more attractive to developers. The only things they have stipulated so far is that any development will be high quality and will have links to the High Street and the Pannier Market. As noted last week other schemes they touched on included the selling of the Sports Ground, a new hotel on the Pill (along with a ‘Town Square’) and residential development on Brunswick Wharf. Needless to say these ideas generated some fairly strong responses from the councillors. Northam’s Roger Tisdale wondered why Westward Ho! had not been included – only to be told that other councillors had voted to leave it out. Phil Pennington was worried that the two managers were ‘going for the easy option in tackling Bridge Street first.’ He suggested that Brunswick Wharf and the Cattle Market were addressed first as they have become such glaring eyesores. My contribution centred on the need to carry the whole town forward together. As the longest serving councillor I have seen numerous schemes come forward from consultants where there has been little real consultation – with either the public or councillors. If there is no widely accepted scheme then this current lot of ideas will merely join all the other failed ones on the, already rather large, shelf in Torridge’s headquarters. As an example of what would be extremely contentious - when the two mentioned ‘residential development’ at Brunswick Wharf warning bells started ringing – what the town does not need in this most prominent and important site is a lot of gimcrack ‘luxury’ flats that would probably be purchased as second homes by absentee owners. The two, however, promised to consult widely, deliver the goods and ensure any development is sustainable - we shall see. I will be returning to aspects of this presentation again as they could be far reaching if they come to fruition. I would add that apparently they were not supposed to have told councillors any details about the plans – all part of the rather dispiriting lack of communication which has been associated with the Bideford Regeneration Initiative for so long. It is good to get a breath of fresh air in the council chambers.
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