Singleton Gardens development takes step forward after four-year wrangle

Developers planning homes on a historic Victorian walled garden site in Torquay have seen their plans take a major step forward.

Local firm OJ Developments wants to build seven apartments at Singleton Gardens but has faced fierce opposition in a planning wrangle dating back to 2021. On one occasion feelings ran so high that police had to be called to reports of an assault at the site.

Now Torbay Council’s planning committee has decided by a single vote that it approves of the plans.

However, there are still major complications, because the Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government has yet to decide whether the project is so contentious that it should be ‘called in’ for a decision at government level.

For that reason, all the planning committee could do was to say it was ‘minded to approve’ the plans rather than giving them the full green light.

The committee spent more than two hours considering the proposal for a four-storey block of seven residential apartments, plus landscaping, parking and access.

The seven-flats plan is the latest in a long line of applications for the gardens, which Eden project founder Sir Tim Smit described as ‘a living monument’.

Last spring work was halted on the site and police were called to an incident following reports of a man being assaulted.

Permission had been given in March 2024 for some demolition work, but there were claims that developers had carried out work beyond the agreed permissions.

Work was halted and a full enforcement notice was issued, with the council saying there had been ‘unlawful partial demolition’ of the original dwelling. OJ Developments appealed.

Previous plans for the site were turned down in 2022 and an appeal was dismissed. The latest version removes two semi-detached homes from the original blueprint.

Council planning officers recommended a ‘minded to approve’ approach, saying the public benefits of the scheme outweighed the harm it would cause to the Lincombes conservation area.

But neighbours raised objections about access to the site, the depth of the excavations, drainage, height and massing.

And Dr Rodney Horder of the Torquay Neighbourhood Plan Forum said there would be seven ‘luxury apartments’ that would end up as holiday homes or Airbnb units.

Developer’s agent Daniel Metcalfe said they would not be luxury flats, but good-sized flats for ‘normal, working people’. “It is right that you scrutinise any application in a conservation area, but our towns need to evolve,” he said. “If the Victorians had eschewed change in Torbay we wouldn’t have the precious Italianate architecture we revere today. We’d be living in mud huts, with fishing nets in one corner and mud huts in the other.”

Supporter Daniel Sharp went on: “The palaver surrounding this site is nothing short of madness. This is housing for local people, developed by local people which will stimulate the local economy.”

Ward councillor Hazel Foster (Con, Wellswood) urged the committee to reject the plans, and Cllr Nick Pentney (Lib Dem, Tormohun) said he couldn’t see much difference from the plans that were rejected in 2022.

But Cllr Anna Tolchard (Con, St Peters with St Marys) and committee chairman Cllr Mike Fox (Lib Dem, Barton with Watcombe) said there were ‘considerable’ differences.

A motion by Cllr Pentney to refuse the plans was defeated by four votes to three, and a motion by Cllr Adam Billings (Con, Churston with Galmpton) to approve them was passed by the same margin.