Western Morning News 09/09/2004
Developers of a £200 million beach village have withdrawn additional planning applications to avoid a public inquiry by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
The move for the Ampersand project -- The Beach - at Carlyon Bay, St Austell, will mean that original plans for 511 luxury holiday homes with leisure facilities will go ahead as approved in 1991.
Subsequent applications for the demolition of the Coliseum to provide high class leisure facilities by rebuilding on the site have now been abandoned. These will be built within the existing building. Also discarded is the planning request to turn The Beach into an all-year-round holiday resort, intended to prompt 12 month trading and employment opportunities. Objectors had hailed the calling in as a chance to view the plans in full, including their environmental concerns, fears for loss of public rights of way and over-development of the area.
Last month, the ODPM announced that the two recent applications should be considered at a public inquiry.
Ampersand has now decided to progress under the original scheme to avoid any further delays.
Ampersand director, Andrew Woods, said: "Since it took the OPDM almost a year to decide whether to call it in or not, we've come to the conclusion it would not be in the interests of either our prospective buyers or tourism in Cornwall to further postpone the project for at least another 18 months." Mr Woods said The Beach has support from most local residents, with the prospect of 400 jobs when the site is up and running and use of facilities. Five hundred jobs have been available during construction but redundancies have been made as a result of the decision to revert to initial plans.
Objectors CarlyonBayWatch have responded by issuing a challenge to Ampersand. "Please sit down with us, and agree a new plan, restricted to the original brownfield site, which will comply with current environmental legislation, will take into account the many serious problems of the original scheme - and create a development of which our community can be truly proud," a statement form the group said yesterday.
Claire Watson