Listing Brixham car park could protect 'exceptional' beach

Developers want to build a £25million hotel complex

The first steps could be taken next week to protect Brixham’s Breakwater Beach area from over-development.

Members of Torbay Council’s cabinet committee will be recommended to make the council-owned car park beside the beach an ‘asset of community value’, which could mean curtains for recent proposals to redevelop the area.

Listing a place as an asset of community value acknowledges that its main use is ‘to further the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community’. If the car park area is listed, the local community would also get the opportunity to club together and buy it if the council ever decided to sell.

The car park is caught up in plans which were unveiled by developers last summer to ‘transform’ the Breakwater Beach area. Hundreds of local people queued across it to examine the plans when they went on show at the Breakwater Bistro.

Many were furious at what they said was a ‘monstrosity’ which would overshadow the beach and ruin the area.

Earlier this year the designers said they were going back to the drawing board to come up with something more acceptable.

The original £25 million hotel complex would have created a 44-bed hotel, spa and beachside bistro. But the multi-coloured design was compared to the fictional village setting in the children’s TV show Balamory.

Jack Turton, who owns the bistro, said new plans would be drawn up as a result of the feedback he had received. He said his scheme would bring new jobs and more tourists to Brixham.

He said he understood concerns over the beach, and pledged that his proposals would not include any development on the beach. He also warned that the current bistro building had structural issues and would need ‘radical’ redevelopment soon.

“The most important thing is that we get it right,” he said. “We’re not here to just build. We’re trying to do something that suits Brixham.”

Nearly 5,000 people joined an online protest group, and local MP Anthony Mangnall promised to present a petition to parliament. Opponents of the development are planning to be at the cabinet meeting next week.

The Breakwater Beach Community Group has made the application to have the area listed, and council officers are advising the cabinet to say yes.

They say: “We want Torbay and its residents to thrive, and consideration should be given to safeguarding amenities which are of great local significance to the places where people live and work.”

The listing would last for at least five years.

In the application the group says Breakwater Beach is a ‘much-loved local asset’ and the car park area provides important access to it.

The request says: “The beauty of the beach is that it is fairly unspoiled and has an old world charm that draws families back to it time and time again.

“The views from the beach are exceptional. It is, as a result, popular 12 months of the year.”