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NEW PLANS FOR BEACH DEVELOPMENT

Ampersand has come to a deal with Cornwall Council planning and development officers after months of discussions behind closed doors on how to salvage their flawed plans for the Carlyon Bay beaches.  

New proposals for the development have been drawn up with the agreement of officers at the new unitary authority (Cornwall Council) - who just happen to be the very same individuals they dealt with at the now defunct Restormel Borough Council and who worked "hand in glove" with the developers throughout the 2006 Public Inquiry process.  These outline proposals will in turn lead to a new planning application once details have been finalised.

(You can see the beaches at Carlyon Bay on Google Maps)

The document drawn up is called a Planning Performance Agreement (PPA) for Development at Carlyon Bay and was agreed on 1st June 2009 by Cornwall Council Planning and Regeneration officers and Commercial Estates Group Ltd. - the company behind Ampersand.  

This PPA is the first step in the planning process and nothing has been considered yet by the parish councils or Cornwall councillors - that will come with the Planning Application stage.

Nevertheless, CBW is deeply suspicious of the way these proposals have been drawn up and continues to believe that they are contrary to planning policies.  The PPA only describes outline proposals - which at the moment are very vague and lack any detail in respect of design and layout or what form any sea defences will take.  The developer says it is now drawing up the plans in more detail in order to submit another planning application sometime in 2010.  The PPA refers to these plans variously as a revised scheme and a new scheme - CBW believes any new application should be treated as a completely new scheme.

The developers claim the proposed new scheme will address matters raised by the Public Inquiry into the sea defences and to "produce a completely new scheme providing high quality visitor facilities focused on the existing brownfield site and significantly reducing the impact on the undeveloped coast and secure a more sustainable approach to the provision of the sea defences".
 

(Carlyon Bay Watch's comment on the plans)  

HOUSING

In the existing permitted plans "the accommodation is for the purpose of holidaying" but the revised scheme, according to this agreement, will explore the "provision of permanent dwellings" and will look at funding "off-site affordable housing".

So they talk of the same 511 units but now say they could be "residential" - does this mean it is no longer a holiday resort but yet another new village-sized development on the outskirts of St Austell?  We already have hundreds of new dwellings being built at Duporth on the site of an old holiday village, as well as another couple of hundred in Charlestown on an old industrial site.  Added to these are the 1,500 new homes being planned by Wainhomes on the northern edge of St Austell and the 5,000 or more which will be built as part of the eco-towns project on old china clay industry land.

They say they are looking at whether the development could be largely concentrated on Crinnis (i.e. the "existing brownfield site") with the rest on Shorthorn.  In this at least they seem to have partly conceded Carlyon Bay Watch's consistent argument that any development should only be allowed on the old brownfield site occupied by the Coliseum complex.  

(One flood defence expert has already detailed why he believes any residential development is dangerous).
 
The Council planning officers have apparently set a minimum of 70% being located on Crinnis.  The developers say they have not yet drawn up any detailed plans on how they propose to do this.  They do not yet know how the buildings, which would need to accommodate more than 350 dwellings as well as commercial and retail space, can be fitted in.  They say they want to move the sea wall further back up the beach which implies even less space to squeeze the buildings in.  

Carlyon Bay Watch can only welcome this shift towards our consistently stated argument that only the existing brownfield site should be developed - but the proposals are still envisaging more than 150 dwellings on Shorthorn Beach - which would mean building on a greenfield site which has many more planning implications.  

The planning agreement claims Shorthorn is "relatively undeveloped" - in fact it was not developed at all until Ampersand moved its heavy equipment onto it and destroyed the wealth of woodland which had grown up there and the wildlife it supported.  The developer talks of Shorthorn containing "trees and areas of shrubs and vegetation, more particularly located to the north of the beach".  Before Ampersand ripped it all up, the vegetation extended across most of the beach above the high tide mark. 

BEACH RECHARGE

They say there will be no beach recharge (a major factor in the report of the Public Inquiry inspector) and have appeared to accept CBW's figures on the 30,000 HGV trips which would have been needed to deliver the materials.  Instead they are proposing to realign the sea wall which they claim would give the necessary 1 in 200 year event protection without extending the beach in front of it.    They also propose a "soft type of defence" on Shorthorn Beach to avoid "hard engineering" on an undeveloped beach and the line of the defence will also be moved northward.  

(Our Climate Change page looks at why it's madness to consider putting residential units on this beach.) 

They say they will carry out more research on the beaches and "modelling will also provide information on the potential effects of the new scheme on the existing interaction between the beaches in Carlyon Bay and the adjacent sections of coast, particularly that further east." 

During the 2006 Public Inquiry into a sea wall defence scheme, the developers said that their scheme would have no effect on the adjacent sections of the coast.  Carlyon Bay Watch experts said that beach material would be washed out of Carlyon Bay and dumped along the coast towards Par to the east - a view dismissed by the developer.  Are they now acknowledging that CBW may have been right all along? 

Carlyon Bay Watch has consistently said that the modelling used so far to determine how the beach moves does not take into account the unique nature of the Carlyon Bay beaches - they are not sand but "stent", a waste product of the china clay industry.  (More information on this)  

They say they want to aim for higher standards of sustainability which at least vindicates CBW's criticisms of the scheme which we have been voicing for some years and seems an admission that the scheme they have been pushing for is not sustainable.  

VISUAL IMPACT

They say they want to reduce the impact on the undeveloped coast.  They say the visual impact will be "limited" as it can only be seen from a few places accessible to the public and they will make sure that "key views" from the coastal path are maintained "between the buildings".  So panoramic seascapes will no longer be one of the pleasures gained from walking the coastal path and we will only be allowed to see glimpses between buildings.

But the visual impact also applies to views from the sea and from other parts of the coast - including the two headlands of St Austell Bay which are Sites of Outstanding Natural Beauty.  No matter how they dress it up, there will still be a wall of concrete by day and the impact of light pollution at night.  

TRAFFIC
The impact of extra traffic caused by this development was not fully explored during the Public Inquiry because that was only addressing the lorry movements and other construction traffic caused by the sea wall and beach recharge scheme.  

The developer says it is mitigating the effects of extra traffic by improving the junction where beach traffic would join the main through road between the A390 and Par.  Local people already know how busy that road gets in the summer holiday months - especially with the weekend market traffic at Cornish Market World opposite and now there are proposals to redevelop part of Par docks with hundreds more dwellings.  (The traffic impact is explored in more detail here).

The fact remains that five hundred new dwellings on this beach have to be served by one fairly narrow access road which clings to the side of the cliff.  During the Public Inquiry even the Inspector expressed concern about how people could escape from the beach in case of an emergency.  This issue is yet to be resolved. 


ECOLOGY

The planning agreement sets out the various surveys and studies to be done to assess the impact on flora and fauna on the beaches.  It is hard to see what they are going to find as the damage has already been done.  The varied flora and fauna which local people have attested to has already been destroyed. (Find out more on our Habitat page.) 

The developer now talks of creating "a woodland setting" on Shorthorn - that woodland setting grew naturally for decades before it was bulldozed.     











 
 
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