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22 Mar 2015

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Beer, Budleigh Salterton, Exmouth, Lympstone, Seaton/ Colyford / Colyton, Sidmouth/ Sidford/ Sidbury, Tourism

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12 Comments

Coastal Community Teams

Get an initial £10,000 and ability to bid for a share of a further £3 million. None of our coastal towns are amongst the first 12 to be announced.

Teamworking amongst towns does not seem to be popular in East Devon, perhaps because they are often at loggerheads due to devisive political shenanigans at town and district council level.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coastal-community-teams-bidding-prospectus

12 thoughts on “Coastal Community Teams”

  1. Don’t be so defeatist!…

    You may remember that, during the course of 2014, Seaton – in the guise of our Seaton Jurassic Project Team received an amazing result with almost £1 million in grants, over £300K of which was from the Coastal Communities Fund. That grant was initially part of a staged process similar to that you describe.

    Team working on Seaton Jurassic includes not just Officers and Member involvement from EDDC, but also DCC, Devon Wildlife Trust, Seaton Town Council, Seaton Visitor Centre Trust and numerous others from the Seaton community and beyond. Proud to work with such a great bunch of people, dedicated, talented, creative and successful!….. Certainly not at ‘loggerheads’ in any way.

    Many would have laid great odds against our success – but the product is the new Seaton Jurassic you now see rising from the old car park next to the Tramway, which itself announced future plans to the press this week.

    With excellent work still being done by the team, I’m quietly confident there may well be more fund raising successes to come soon…

    The one certain thing is that, if you think you cant do it – you won’t…

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  2. I am so glad that Seaton has been so successful with this Community lead team which has worked together in having this Seaton Jurassic Visitor Centre, We in Exmouth were trying to do as far back as 2005 and since then had a number of inventive members of our community being active in funded private money for the project.
    At that time it was hoped the Imperial Rec would be the ideal site for a new Jurassic visitor centre. and to be built by 2012.
    This was not to be, so the next project was taken over by the Exmouth and Seaton Interpretation centres board which was formed to see the delivery of these idea’s for the two towns. However the board pulled the plug because of increasing workload and funding problems. The next site earmarked was next to the Mamhead Slipway , then next, the Orcombe Point area.
    The Seaton Centre at this point was on the verge of being filed, but Exmouth and it’s visitor centre had completely stalled.
    We did have hope that EDDC would let the Campaign Group called Friends of Elizabeth Hall take over the unwanted building who had managed to put a sum of £250,000 towards a scheme of enhancement so retaining it as a Community arts and visitor centre, but the panel given the task of choosing the councils preferred bidder was more interested in the amount of money they could get from Whitbread PLC . So good luck to Sidmouth , and bad luck to Exmouth who got a brand new Premier Inn.
    11,000 people signed a petition asking to save the Hall Site, with many who had no objection to a Premier Inn saying it would be successful for visitors and employment where ever else it could be built, with our own council giving their support to our community members. From that moment on, all my views on what i believed was a fair and well run EDDC ended.

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    • It was a mistake, I did mean Seaton, but as the EDDC at Sidmouth hold the money which they received from the sale of the Elizabeth Hall, i felt that it could be left as it was.
      It was announced at that time that the sum of money from Whitbread PLC would pay for the new Mamhead Slipway with the remainder kick-starting the Queens Drive Leisure development.
      Unfortunately costs have been going up, with Mamhead taking most,’ if not more’ of what was quoted 3 years ago.
      In fact had EDDC come to a short term agreement with the Friends of Elizabeth Hall and having spent their £250,000 required to renovate the building, with our Exmouth Council gaining a Tourist Office
      The whole enlarged building, if in the advent of the Friends failing, would still be an asset and Council owned.
      No doubt it would now be worth more then what Whitbread paid for it. I should like to add, that i live on the Exmouth Quay development, which a sea facing 3 bedroom flats are selling for up to a million pounds.
      I think the Hall was a very good deal for Whitbread PLC, even although it included paying a reported £150,000 for a Uni-sex Toilet Block to replace the toilets on the site.
      Sorry but at 80 years old i do get forgetful, but will remember who will not get my vote in May.

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  4. And, as if by magic – here is the news I am now able to release of a further success for the Seaton Jurassic project team, securing another £200K from the Coastal Communities Fund.
    Hope you will wish to join me in congratulating the team on its further success, with the prospect of more good news to come for Seaton in the future.
    Long regarded as perhaps the ‘Cinderella’ of our coastal towns, Seaton is now very much ‘on the up’!
    http://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/update/2015-03-26/visitor-centre-in-devon-to-receive-cash-boost/

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      • OK, if you’re saying you don’t want me to post – but as a parting thought – surely keeping an objective ‘close eye on our district’ must involve the odd bit of good news now and again for balance?
        Over and out…
        Ian

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  6. Ian, Could i ask you if you were at the planning meeting at the Knowle, back when the Conservative Majority voted to sell the Elizabeth Hall Site for the new Whitbread PLC Premier Inn for £1.2 million and could it be said that had you been there, you would have also voted with the Conservatives for selling it at a price which many regard as being undersold back in 2013.
    The reason for saying this is, was because it had been a firm objective of keeping it for the good of the Community.
    One last thing of interest, this week in the Exmouth Herald, a 3 bedroom flat with lovely sea views on the Quay is being sold for the sum of £1.400 000, Lease-hold, with no land. Those who thought Whitbread PLC had the better deal, were possibly right.
    Our expectations for Exmouth were crushed, Our Council has no Visitors Centre, and EDDC lost another Valuable Asset.

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