Information on public speaking is available online
Minutes:
There were 7 members of the public wishing to speak.
1. Julia Gash reported that she had moved down from Sheffield to Exmouth 5 years ago for the gentler climate and beautiful coastline. The drawback she experienced was the town was tired in terms of its offer. She wished to express her support for the development work that had been undertaken on the seafront so far. She thought this would improve the tourism offer for the town, the economy and creating a contemporary space that is attractive to both visitors and residents. As an Exmouth business owner she wished to express her support for the Hemingway vision.
2. Laura Woodward-Drake introduced herself as the new Chair of the Exmouth Chamber of Commerce whose motto was ‘Grow Stronger Together’. She wished to echo the previous speaker’s comments on the Hemingway plan in regenerating the seafront. She was the manager of a local language school with 4,000 visitors and who regularly brought, many of them to the seafront. She considered the Hemingway Design to be a good one and ticked many boxes. She hoped that development on the seafront could move forward now.
3. Justin Moore reported that the Queens Drive development was a fantastic opportunity for Exmouth. The Hemingway Design was well presented and would complement other developments. It would make Exmouth an all year round destination and improve the economy. He saw the changes made as positive.
4. Ivor Jones thanked the Panel for the opportunity to speak. He was the Station Manager for NCI Exmouth who have operated from the tower adjacent to the Harbour View Café. Part of the national network of NCI stations and consistently the 3rd/4th busiest station. The ability for them to operate properly in Exmouth depended upon them having a new facility. They needed 25m of look out space in the new development to include training and storage facilities. He hoped that a Coast Watch Visitors Centre could be incorporated in the new facility, as this would be a great benefit for Exmouth. An inspirational new building would be to everyone’s benefit. To compromise with unsuitable and inadequate coast watch facilities would impact upon NCI’s ability to provide an effective and efficient coast watch service for this area both now and in the future.
5. Gordon Hodgson reported that he had lived in Exmouth for 48 years. He had been part of a group in Exmouth that had been working to unburden the Seafront site from the unrealistic expectations of a commercial return. He wished to widen the range of ideas and improve public consultation. Balance the need to have confidential commercial information to provide the public with information. He wished to see the idea of a hotel removed from the proposed developments. The site was expected to provide too much of a commercial return. This had artificially increased to pay for the cost of road alignment.
6. Sally Galsworthy, local Exmouth resident agreed with most of what the first two speakers had said. However, there was a history of a sorry saga of the seafront and democracy had been by-passed. A businesses on the seafront had spent up to £10k of their own money on plans to develop their business. She was pleased that the new administration had taken over and were pursuing a more open regime.
The plans for the new hotel were misguided and 6 years of soft marketing for the site had not provided any success. By contrast there had been 6 bids for the Harbour View site. The purchase of the Ocean building had proved, so far, to be a wasted opportunity and was losing money for the council. Why did the council pay full price for this building and she felt that councillors had been fed misinformation. Why not put business spaces in the Ocean building to let by tender?
7. Daphne Currier, local Exmouth resident was a member of Save Exmouth Seafront and felt that the public’s concern over developments along the seafront had been ignored. The Constitution of Save Exmouth Seafront had three key objectives which were to support local businesses, to demand independent consultation and to stand against inappropriate development. It was noted that support for businesses included water sports. With regard to public consultation, the option of a hotel had been the least popular in EDDC’s own consultation and a Town Poll had shown that 95% of respondents had asked for further independent public consultation. Inappropriate development was considered to be development which placed excessive demands on local infrastructure.