One local resident has given us permission to use this letter she sent recently to Tony Lee, Cornwall Council's head of planning. 

"Dr Mr Lee
Re: CARLYON BEACH DEVELOPMENT BY CEG

“…I think we need to base planning policy on local need, not developer’s greed. That’s exactly what the coalition Government is aiming to do.”Steve Gilbert, MP for St Austell and Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Housing. Cornish Guardian, 21.07.10.

We have issues with overdevelopment, in this case with the beach development at Carlyon Bay by CEG. 
The developers are calling this development “a resort” but it is not a resort, it is housing in the form of expensive apartments. A resort would suggest limited occupancy and non-permanent residents and, in fact, they propose 20% for permanent residents, the rest holiday homes. There is, however, no plan to enforce limited occupancy and no “policing” of the “resort” to ensure that people do not move in permanently, a fact which was confirmed to me by a member of CEG at their open day towards the end of last year.

Besides, a resort would again provide empty holiday homes, an issue of major concern recently in Cornwall. Steve Gilbert will be addressing the issues of “second homes, empty homes, sky-high house prices……….and overdevelopment” as Co-Chair of the APPG on Housing, as stated in the above article.

The developers suggest the development will attract tourism. It will only attract tourism as a “resort” for visitors and then only if it is affordable, not as permanent residences. 

To increase the area of Carlyon Bay by 511 apartments with most likely at least two or three residents each apartment will place an unacceptable burden on the sewage system, local traffic, doctors, dentists, schools and hospitals. To this will have to be added, as a separate issue but nevertheless of major concern to local people, the proposed development of Par Docks, which will add to the burden environmentally and for the local population. Perhaps of greater or equal concern will be the ability of local police to cope with the increase of perhaps 2000 people when they struggle to cope with present demands.

The current situation is not wonderful. The sewage works in Par Moor Road are already unable to cope and have to have lorry-loads taken away on a regular basis. It already takes 2+ weeks to see the doctor of your choice. There are regular queues at the roundabout leading onto the A390 and subsequently past Tescos, Asda and McDonalds/B&Q. Hospital appointments are at least 3 months. Add to that another possible 1500+ residents and you can at least double these figures.

Polgaver beach is a local amenity at the end of a public footpath. People use the footpath to climb down the cliff path and access the beach. It is well known in the locality and has been used for years. Now it is proposed to stop people walking down this path by denying beach access and Fishing Point access. Why should a local amenity be removed to satisfy a “developer’s greed”? Beaches, especially in Cornwall which is a traditional holiday resort for residents of Great Britain, should be a national heritage facility which no single person or group should be able to deny.

The Council (Restormel) used to own the site where the development is planned and sold it on to developers. Since then, developers over the years have tried to inhibit the locals from using the beach by placing metal shuttering and boulders to cut people off at high tide. Admittedly, the Council have placed an order on them to remove the shuttering and boulders but it has only happened in part. Some of the boulders are still below the high water level. I understand no-one can legally “own” between low and high tides.

The developers state that it will provide considerable local employment. It will (possibly) during development but not post-development.

Shorthorn beach is declared a “county wildlife site” by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Polgaver beach is home to a rare plant to UK shores as identified by a local botanical expert. Recently the developers have driven JCBs and other heavy plant through this area to make room for a carpark and different access to the beach from Crinnis, resulting in complete devastation. If this is how seriously they take environmental issues, I don’t hold out much hope for any environmental consideration at all.

I hope you will give serious consideration to these points before deciding on planning consents.

Yours sincerely

J W KING

cc: Mr Phil Mason, St Austell
Mr Paul Banks, Cornwall Council Development Control , 3-5 Barn Lane, Bodmin, PL31 1LZ.
Mr Steve Gilbert MP
Planning Government Office Southwest, Plymouth"

Two people have emailed us with their thoughts on the long planning battle over the Carlyon Bay beaches.

In March 2010, we had this from DH of North Yorkshire.

"I have been keeping an eye on developments on and off since I first heard about the problems caused by Ampersand some years ago.  I find the new plan issue worrying.  Having experienced how the planners operate (in North Yorkshire anyway) I am rather cynical about the whole process which clearly seems to be weighted in favour of developers.  On the plans themselves I have a few observations:

• ‘Social housing’ and ‘off site’ leapt out at me.  This looks like a deal is being struck for Ampersand to get what it wants in return for providing low cost housing stock perhaps on another, possibly brownfield, site provided by the council, hence off site.  The ‘social housing’ will probably be priced out of the financial reach of ordinary Cornish people anyway.
• The ‘current brownfield site’ will almost certainly turn out to be the site up to the ugly metal piles driven into the beach which form the boundary of the old development site that ampersand created.  They will probably argue it is brownfield because it has been developed.
• Sadly I think you will probably turn out to be right about the change from Holiday use to permanent because of the economic downturn.  Ampersand will probably want some profit and to keep its capital so selling units will be very attractive to them.  So the rich folks get their waterfront apartments and the less well off Cornish get tiny overpriced cottages on a former industrial estate is my guess.  In the process the soul gets ripped out of a historical piece of Cornwall.
  
  

Cornwall doesn’t need developments that attack communities like this it needs small businesses to create long term employment for the Cornish people and you don’t put them on beaches!

I do hope you win this.

Best Wishes

DH, North Yorkshire"



In January 2010, a visitor from the London area contacted us.  With his permission, this is his email together with a reply by CBW member Peter Browning.

"Hello - I dropped in on Carlyon Bay purely by chance on New Year's Eve,
during a three-day trip to Cornwall. I had never been there before nor
heard about it.

I was immediately struck by the rugged beauty and simplicity of a
relatively unadorned beached, similar to some of the large, classic Greek
beaches I am used to on my trips there, such as Ayia Ana (Naxos): more than 1.5km of pretty much undeveloped sand, and Megalo Seitani (Samos);
accessible only by boat or a one-hour scramble through the olive groves..

I was also fascinated by the large, blue 'visitor centre', the fencing, the
piling and the fascinating 80s era wreck of a building. Uninformed as to
the development history, I thought the buildings' roofs had been torn off
by the elements, and the windows punched out by high seas. I hoped this was an example of wild nature taking back the land, and that, eventually, some local authority would eventually accept defeat and quietly bulldoze and cart away the rubble and let the beach slowly revert to its natural state.

However, on getting back to my B&B, I fired up the laptop and visited the
developer's website, determined to learn a bit more about what was going
on.

I was amazed to see the plans Ampersand/CEG have for the beach, and I
questioned the viability, both from a commercial and an environmental point
of view.

Today I have visited your superb website, and updated myself on the history of the area and the planning battle.

As a local newspaper journalist I'm well used to these sorts of wrangles
and this one, although highly drawn out, seems to be following a pretty
familiar pattern.

But I would be interested to know if CBW objects purely on the grounds of
inappropriacy, environmental damage and so on, or, if you are really
honest, because the development is something that will upset the status
quo? It seemed to me that there was a fair amount of development up the
cliff, with the hotel, the side roads and very desireable homes punched
into what would have once been virgin scrub and woodland, and the other
bits and pieces on the backside of the bay (kart track?).

I imagine those were anathema to someone once. Maybe there was even a
forerunner to CBW saying: 'No homes!' or 'No expansion to the hotel!' or
'Save our headland!'

Graham Norwood's Observer piece of November 8 cited one of CBW's objections as the effect the development would have on property prices. In other words, in his view, those already sitting pretty might lose out to someone else's desire to also sit pretty. Would there also be less of a problem if the developer was a local business person or consortium rather than outsiders?

It's a tricky argument: I understand you are not opposed to limited,
sustainable development, and accept it will happen eventually. But one
person's despoilation is another's progress, and, in common with other
places I have seen - such as Jandia Bay in Fuerteventura with its
hotel-only economy - I'm sure there will be many hundreds of local
potential chambermaids, handymen, gardeners, caterers, groundskeepers etc. hoping this development might be their salvation from low paid or
merely seasonal employment.

As an outsider I would love to arrive at a Carlyon Bay TOTALLY devoid of
any development save perhaps a car park and a couple of HIGHLY CONTROLLED cafés, perhaps one at each end. No huts, no hotels, no pedalos or jet skis. Laissez faire management and minimum intervention. You come, you sit, you swim, you leave - but that would hardly bring in the crowds or the cash, would it?

It seems to me, striking a happy medium is the hardest of all tasks. In
keeping with the rest of Cornwall, playing to the area's strengths of
natural beauty and relatively good climate provides work and income, but to
provide that work and income in adequate amounts sometimes demands a
fundamental re-shaping of the landscape. The Eden Project is a brilliant
reclamation of a former quarry, a source of employment and a market for
local traders. It's also a traffic nuisance to those who must watch
thousands of cars per day roll past their home in the summertime. No doubt
there are others in similar vein.

I will follow the developments (or otherwise!) at Carlyon Bay with interest
on your website.

AH, London"

Reply from Peter Browning.