Seaton: This is not Las Vegas

Last Friday night I went to a quite extraordinary show that restores ones faith in humanity - it was a musical with Elvis, Abba and more set in Seaton and revolved around the towns battle against the quite horrifyingly awful plans to develop that town.

The show opened with Elvis - played by John Swithenbank - husband of Anne Swithenbank (Gardeners Questiontime fame) who was also in the audience supporting. Chaos and mayhem followed - the show title "This is not Las Vegas" came from a headline in the Midweek Herald when the origin of developer's money turned out to be the "winnings" partly from being owners of and selling England's second largest casino in the seaside town of Westcliff-on-Sea.

The show had has its serious side - to remind people that the fight against this development continues and that we must not let down our guard. The current planning application is for a major part of the 'Seaton Regeneration area site' ie 44 acres and is the only large remaining development site in the town.

'Stand Up for Seaton' are the campaign group and their blog site has loads of info about why they exist:
http://standup4seaton.blogspot.com/2007/04/why-this-blog-exists.html

In there blurb they show how towns people developed the Seaton Regeneration Area Development Brief - however, buried on the back page of this development brief there was a killer paragraph which said: "Whilst a broad assessment has been undertaken to determine the overall viability of the development brief, this has not been able to take into account the full range of contributions which would be sought or the precise level of infrastructure costs. There will therefore need to be a more detailed appraisal of costs and values before the level of contributions can be determined. ..... The actual disposition of the uses within the site however is not prescriptive."

It transpired that the Council had known all along that the site would need to be raised and that this would require infill but had not told the town. This made the entire development brief unviable - four wasted years. Now in order to progress the current planning application, it will be necessary to:

1. Bring in 1 million tons of infill to raise the site up up to 2m - 180 lorry movements per day 6 days a week for the next 3 to 4 years through Seaton. 2. To lose the holiday village (a 400 bed village which is occupied 80% of the time, 50 weeks a year) - ie lose 90% of Seaton's overnight tourism capacity (and more than 60% of the tourist capacity in the area from Branscome to Axmouth and north to Colyton). I believe this will also impact on villages like Colyton where my parents live - it has quite a few shops that rely on tourism from the Seaton Tramway stop. 3. To lose all community facilities, none of which will be replaced (actually there has been talk of a small room - 30 sq m which could be a meeting room OR gym OR nursery but it is only talk). There will be no replacement of the overnight tourist accommodation. 4. Flood relief to the site and surrounding properties will be by means of a monsoon drain (50 ft wide, 10 feet deep, 20 feet across the bottom). This will be grassed and paved and called a "walkway and cycleway" even though it leads to a dead end. If it fills with more than 10 inches of water it will sweep a man off his feet. This will be the ONLY public open space on the site with the exception of a small paved square at the entrance to the supermarket. 5. The "iconic" visitor centre will have a footprint of only 500 sq m and will need to be 3 storeys high to accommodate interpretation material. It will be between a main road (the Underfleet) and a 5,000 sq m supermarket which itself will be next to a 2,600 sq m non-food store (our current largest shop - a Co-op supermarket - is 750 sq m). This cannot be iconic or worth a long trip for a visit. 6. The supermarket will be 6 times the size of our largest shop in the town, the non food store nearly 4 times larger. The supermarket will have 555 parking spaces which will need to be shared with tourists who will be allowed to stay for no more than 3 hours - after that they will pay a fine. There will be no links to the small, independent stores in the current high street (Fore Street). You know what I think about supermarkets and how they kill town centres - see report here. 7. On the entire site there will be about 630 houses in total - this will mean about 1,500 extra people in the town, of which some 300 are expected to get jobs with the new store and small shops. (150 will lose their jobs at the holiday village, so the net gain would be about 150 mostly part-time and low-paid jobs - that of course does not include the loss of jobs from the town centre when the superstores open. 8. Affordable housing should total about 180 homes. However, in November 2005 the developer applied to a public inquiry to reduce this to 75 due to the cost of building up the site.

Photo: Napoli info boards are now on the beach at Seaton warning of oil and more - see post on 22nd Feb 2007 when I was last in Seaton

There is more on the blog site - so far the planning application has attracted nearly 900 objections and 8 letters of support. Meetings in the town on this matter have never resulted in an audience of less than 300 and sometimes up to 600. The campaign group put forward 8 people I think in the recent town elections and got all of them elected.

There ARE alternatives - have a look at the one worked up by Seaton Development Trust by clicking here. The town have also looked at Community Land Trusts - see here - as blog readers will know I am a great fan of these. I wish this campaign every success.

Heres my letter to the local press in that area and below a letter to Sustrans and their reply:

Last Friday night I was at the extraordinary show in Seaton Town Hall: "This is not Las Vegas". The show was an inspiring and wonderfully powerful reminder of the need to continue the fight against the deeply damaging proposed developments in the 'Seaton Regeneration area site'.

My parents live in Colyton so I'm a regular visitor to the area and have been shocked to see the appalling disregard of local opinion by the developer.

How can the developer or indeed anyone even begin to entertain such a plan that looks set to destroy Seatons' independent shops and community facilities? Losing 400 tourist beds means tourism will be knocked into touch and surrounding towns like Colyton who rely in part on tourist trade will also face decline. On top of that, this plan for homes on a flood plain with only basic standards which will contribute to climate change, makes a mockery of sustainability.

Seaton has the potential for an exciting future that will make future generations proud, but not with this plan. It is however inspiring to see the strength of public opinion and the energy of those fighting this shameful plan. They will need all the support they can get. Visit their blog: http://standup4seaton.blogspot.com/

Cllr Philip Booth

Letter to Sustrans:

Re: Seaton Regeneration area site I have been a supporter of Sustrans for many years and am excited by the many projects which you have undertaken and are planning. However I am deeply concerned by the 'Seaton Regeneration area site' in Devon. There is massive local opposition to the current proposals by the developer there - and justifiable so - the plans are deeply unsustainable.

Last Thursday night I was at the extraordinary show in Seaton Town Hall - "This is not Las Vegas" - it was the story of the fight against the deeply damaging proposed developments. The serious problem for Sustrans is that your name is being linked to the development proposals. I would welcome a clear statement about your position with regards to this development. Amongst the plans are two massive retail units that are not linked to the town and look set to destroy Seatons' independent shops. The plan also involves removing and not replacing community facilities, plus losing 400 tourist beds ie lose 90% of Seaton's overnight tourism capacity (and more than 60% of the tourist capacity in the area from Branscome to Axmouth and north to Colyton) - this will seriously damage tourism in the area and local surrounding towns like Colyton who also rely in part on tourist trade. On top of that, this plan for homes on a flood plain has only basic standards for the homes and will contribute to climate change.

It seems that the flood relief to the site and surrounding properties will be by means of a monsoon drain (50 ft wide, 10 feet deep, 20 feet across the bottom) - this will be grassed and paved and called a "walkway and cycleway" even though it leads to a dead end. If it fills with more than 10 inches of water it will sweep a person off his feet - it will also be the ONLY public open space on the site with the exception of a small paved square at the entrance to the supermarket. See the campaign groups blog for more info: http://standup4seaton.blogspot.com/

Seaton has the potential for an exciting future that will make future generations proud, but not with this plan. I hope that Sustrans can play a part in supporting the local community and their more sustainable plans. I look forward to hearing your views. Cllr Philip Booth

Reply from Sustrans:

Thank you for your recent email forwarded to me by our info team.

Sustrans was consulted at an early stage on the proposals for this site and gave general guidance on the importance of permeability of the site for pedestrians and cyclists. As far as I know we have not been consulted on the plans currently before the Council, but we would give similar guidance. We publish general guidance on design of urban and rural cycle facilities, available on our web site.

Regretably we do not have the resources to monitor and comment on even every major planning application throughout the UK, though we try to when our interests, for instance when proposals have a direct effect on the National Cycle Network, are directly affected.

It would not normally be appropriate for Sustrans, an independent charity promoting sustainable transport, to ally itself to special interest campaign groups however worthy the cause. We will continue to speak for provision of good quality infrastructure within any development on this site, but it is not part of our remit to judge the merit of any particular scheme.

Rupert Crosbee, Regional Negotiator