Owl wonders how EDDC is getting on with Grenadier in Exmouth …..
“Uncertainty over the impact of Brexit on the UK property market has hit two major council investment projects.
Essex County Council this week formally removed £6m from the budget for its £50m property investment fund after pausing further purchases due to worries over Brexit.
Meanwhile, Brighton & Hove City Council has been forced to delay the signing of a development agreement on a regeneration scheme in which it is planning to invest £8m.
The problems emerged in a week that communities secretary James Brokenshire announced allocations for councils under a new £56m fund to help them prepare for Brexit.
In a report to councillors, Margaret Lee, executive director for corporate and customer services, recommended the £6m reduction in Essex’s property investment fund, saying: “Due to the uncertainties caused by Brexit and the potential impact on the property market, the scheme has been paused with no further purchases planned.”
The pause in investment was originally agreed by Essex councillors in November, after advice from its adviser Hymans Robertson not to expand its commercial property programme “due to the current market conditions including the unknown impact of Brexit”.
However, the council has now decided to remove £6m from the investment programme budget as part of a package of measures that will help the authority reach a forecast underspend of £29.6m in its 2018/19 capital spending programme.
Before the programme was halted, £44m of the fund had been spent on property, which the council says is already yielding £1m for council services.
Essex is set to review whether to restart commercial property investment through the fund during the summer.
Meanwhile, in Brighton, councillors have been forced to delay a deadline they set for housebuilder Crest Nicholson to sign the development agreement on the King Alfred leisure centre and housing regeneration scheme.
Originally, councillors had proposed to walk away from discussions with the developer unless it signed the deal by 31 January.
However, it extended the deadline until 30 March – the day after the UK’s date for leaving the European Union (EU), following a last minute plea from Crest.
In a letter to the council, it cited “challenging economic uncertainties surrounding Brexit and the impact this could yet have on the construction industry workforce and wider confidence and stability of the property market”.
It added that “as soon as we have greater certainty over the nature and form of the Brexit arrangement which we all hope and expect will be achieved shortly, and assuming this does give reasonable certainty over the future trading relations with Europe, then we will enter into the development agreement and commit the team and resources required to promote the scheme, develop the design and seek planning in accordance with the conditions and programme”.
In 2016, the council committed £8m to the project, which comprises a sports centre, swimming pool, underground parking and 565 homes in blocks of up to 18 storeys high.”
East Devon Watch 
In Exmouth we have a very large Ocean Blue Building which needs Council Subsidies, We also have a new revitalised Mamhead Slipway which has cost around 1.5 Million but so far it has not collected a penny towards it’s cost that can be accounted for.
We have a new Centre for Water-Sport User’s which again has arrangements for a pepper-corn rent, and a road diversion.
We still do not know what is intended for the Children’s Play & Leisure Park but so far some 200,000 pounds has been spent on temporary arrangements and now called the Exmouth Space, which we are now told they may be in place for three years.
We were told in a EDDC release in 2016, that eight food & drink establishments – such as Nando’s, La-Tasca & Pizza Express,
A Multiplex Cinema with the creation of 175 Jobs with Business unit’s & Free Play Space along side the Adventure Golf & Water Splash Facility for Children, And up to 40 Apartments. How they would accommodate an area for what was a 14 000 sq feet Amusement and Leisure Park that we had in Queens Drive, to just a 3,400 sq feet planned replacement, is hard to explain.
But we do realize if we want a Museum or what has been spoken about in the past, ‘a Jurassic Centre’ on the Sea Front we all realize it will have to be paid for out of our Taxes, if EDDC do build a new Commercial Complex to attract more visitor’s who have the extra spending power the EDDC talk about, we will still have to bear the cost with much higher prices that will have to be charged on this most seasonal part of our sea front. But like the Ocean Blue we still still do not know if it will be successful.
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