• This topic has 17 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 8 years ago by Si.
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  • Ever been to Bantham (South Devon)?
  • ferrals
    Free Member

    Bantham is a beach in the South hams of Devon. Its on a private estate, which for years was Evans Estates, who managed the area sympathetically and avoided any necessary development. Recently the estate and beach was sold to someone from Oxfordshire who is a ‘village collector’, already owning one village near Oxford.

    Since taking over he’s upset many of the residents, including using arcane loopholes in the law to re-possess homes and evict tenants (he wanted the house destroyed to facilite his plans for a pheasant shoot I heard.

    Anyhow, the owners put in application to install automatic parking barriers for the beach. If you don’t know the place it might not seem a big deal, but its an unspoilt AONB and its seems totally unecessary and out of place.

    If you know the area and want to object the details are:
    Planning portal page

    qwerty
    Free Member

    It is a lovely big beach spot there.

    Can you object to the application if your not local?

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Yeah I don’t live close any more, but still objected. Just seems totally unecessary. THe guys I’m still friends with down there seem to think its to cash in on out of hours parking and reducing staff costs (used to be a guy taking money on the gate)

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    jam-bo
    Full Member

    but its an unspoilt AONB and its seems totally unecessary and out of place.

    any more than the existing hut, metal gates and speedbumps?

    ferrals
    Free Member

    Unless things have changed since the last time I was back, the hut and gate were the same as I remember them being for 30 odd years, pretty sure the gate was white painted wood?

    A big difference from having a two way in-out automated barrier like a multi story car park. I think it is out of place. Plus there is the extra noise pollution of a barrier constantly going up and down. It also means no more free early morning parking for a pre-work surf – which will translate to people parking in the village iself to avoid paying when there is minimal parking. I remember once (can’t remember why it was so bad and people werent just paying), people parking in all the passing spaces along to west buckland. I imagine that will happen more if early morning and late evening payment is required.

    brassneck
    Full Member

    Love that beach.

    I guess the auto gates are to catch the evening swimmers/walkers/surfers? It’s at its best on warm evening / early morning.

    Seriously if you can afford to buy the place, WGAS about that?

    As you say, it’ll just mean the village getting snarled up when people park elsewhere. Maybe the shoot needs to get stuck behind a queue of T5s for a day…

    ferrals
    Free Member

    I guess so. I suppose he wants to re-coup his investment.

    I don’t think the owner ‘gets’ the area. I hear he’s planning to organize shoot lunches down on Jenkins / the Salmon Quay, with transport by boat – I can’t see that being pleasant in the winter shooting season! Let alone the fact half the time in winter there wouldn’t be enough tide to get back and forth anyway.

    Dunno what the pub staff will do either, when I worked there we were just let through, if you have to pay £6 to park that’s 1hr wages gone! It’s been heart warming to see how many people have objected actually, shows how much the area means to so many people.

    brassneck
    Full Member

    Signed. Have similar situations round my way (several villages / estates bought and sold, mainly for the shooting) but luckily they tend to leave well alone as they are established businesses or they want to keep it for themselves and their friends. The lives of friends of mine are pretty precariously built on the whim of the owners.

    bikebouy
    Free Member

    Yup, used it a bit for surfing and windsurfing, been a while since I’ve been down though but did know about the village buyout..

    Bit crap that…

    ceepers
    Full Member

    Funnily enough my mate who’s a local surfer sent me an email about this an hour or so ago.

    We’ve got a similar situation at saunton up here

    http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/anyone-holiday-surf-in-north-devon

    We got mobilised as a local community. So far 480 planning objections (links in that thread, some of them will have issues that can be applied to bantham), an online petition with over 10,000 signatures, coverage on radio Devon and radio 2, a meeting with the MP and we’ve forced the car park owners to at least meet around the table and discuss modifying their plans!

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    It also means no more free early morning parking for a pre-work surf

    This seems to be the crux of the objection to this and the saunton scheme as well.

    ceepers
    Full Member

    At saunton it’s also the lack of clarity about chargeable hours (they’ve now backed away from 24 hours!) and no season ticket option which makes regular during the day use unaffordable for most here

    ferrals
    Free Member

    For Bantham it’s a range of issues, certainly for some the loss of free parking time is a key issue. The thing is that for a long time Evans estates avoided all commercialism of the beach and ham area. Then, and I never knew the exact details or how much was just gossip, but apparently the RNLI were putting up the charges for their beach lifeguard service and some deal was struck whereby thr brother of someone high up in the regional RNLI was allowed to open a surf school, with funds from the surf school paying the excess. This was not well received by many as local surf schools had been forbidden from working form the Bantham side due the avoidance of commercialisation. Subsequently a posh burger van was allowed to run at the beach, despite the fact that it took trade from the locals hop and pub. Many felt both these went against the spirit of the place being as unspoilt as possible. Recently the estate was sold (this made national news as the nat. Trust were interested), unfortunately they were outbid but the buyer stated they would aim to avoid all development and keep the village, ham and beach as it was. Clearly that’s not happening. This is my issue. It seems to be unnecessary development, and not in keeping with the spirit of the place. Evans estate had successfully kept changes to a minimum for many years so that if you were early in winter you’d be hard pressed to see much different from the old photos.

    Si
    Free Member

    Oh but the villagers were so smug and pleased that the Trust didn’t get it…

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Oh but the villagers were so smug and pleased that the Trust didn’t get it…

    I can sort of see why; the National Trust have a great big car park just by the road into Avebury, and there’s also another, smaller one in the centre of the village, which I always used to use, until the NT put up signs banning tourist parking there, restricting it to residents. Who don’t need a car park because they park their cars outside their homes.
    When I bitched about it to a bloke from NT, pointing out that as a resident of North Wilts, living within cycling distance, about twelve-fifteen miles, I’m hardly a bloody tourist, he admitted it was to force visitors to use the big car park so that NT could make more money.
    Screw that, I either use the pub car park, which used to be pay and display (!), but reason prevailed, or a small pull-in along the Herepath going up to the Ridgeway.
    If the NT had got hold of the place, they’d probably have done something fairly similar; I see from the OS map that the other side of the river is NT owned.
    I don’t know that particular bit, I’ve not really explored much further up than Salcombe and Hope Cove, but I thought the name was familiar; looking at the map, would there be any mileage in the pub offering cheap parking out of hours, and surfers and walkers going the rest of the way on foot? There are public RoW all around there, so surely they can’t force access restrictions on those?
    Next time I’m down there, I’ll have to take a trip round there.

    Si
    Free Member

    You could become a member?

    ferrals
    Free Member

    The NT would have definitely been a mixed blessing. I guess the difference is you would know what to expect.

    They recently took over the car-park at Rhosilli, Gower, and the guys who’d had a burger van there for a few years were turfed off.

    Bantham on BBC website:
    Anger over Bantham beach car park barriers plan

    Si
    Free Member

    So you want a charitable organisation to protect your coastline in perpetuity but don’t think said organisation should have the right to generate the income to fund the management this would require…Interesting

Viewing 18 posts - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)

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