Dave Thomas: Regeneration projects are gathering pace

You may have noticed that our redevelopment and regeneration plans are really starting to gather pace. This was reinforced last week as we announced that we are inviting expressions of interest from investors, occupiers and developers to work with us on restoring Oldway Mansion and the Pavilion in Torquay.

Torbay is really at the beginning of a once in a generation transformation journey as we continue our focus on making the most of the Bay’s premier marine and natural environment. This is alongside ensuring our heritage also shapes our next steps.

Working with the community to deliver a resilient future for Oldway Mansion and Torquay Pavilion is a priority for us and seeking these expressions of interest is a step towards us doing that.

I want to confirm though that these two historic properties are not for sale. We want to keep these properties for our local communities and restoring both buildings will require us to work with our public and private sector partners to ensure that both sites have a sustainable and long future. 

We have promoted these two properties in last weekend's The Times property supplement, which is called Bricks and Mortar, to raise our profile nationally and to reach those who are interested in these types of projects. We have asked for expressions of interest to be with us by the middle of June and I look forward to updating you on how this has gone.

You may remember in October last year the Government announced that Torquay was one of 55 towns around the country which would benefit from a share of £1.1 billion Levelling Up investment. The initiative is known as the Long-Term Plan for Towns and means that over a 10-year period Torquay will have £20 million of funding to support and deliver projects which focus on the issues that matter most to local people. 

Earlier this week we had the pleasure in welcoming Adam Hawksbee, the interim Chair of the Governments Towns Unit who are overseeing this funding to visit Torquay. During his visit he met with myself, council officers and representative from key community groups and we took him on a tour of the town centre so he could see our current challenges and we could share our aspirations of how the funding will be used.

Over the coming weeks we will have more information to share on how this funding will be used locally. We are working with Torbay Communities to ensure the local communities' voice and concerns are heard and used in improving Torquay. As the plan is developed there will be opportunities for you to get involved, and again I’ll let you know more about this soon.

As we are now in May, even though last week it still felt like we were coming out of winter, the Bay’s extensive events calendar is about to start. And to kick it all off is the extremely popular Brixham Pirate Festival. 

Billed as “the annual gathering of the world’s most infamous pirates and lowly scallywags,” over the past decade the event has grown into a hugely popular celebration of all things piratical. This year the ‘Nao Victoria’ will also be sailing into Brixham Harbour especially for the 2024 Festival, and will be available for viewing throughout the entire festival. If you attend, I am sure you will have a swashbuckling time!

As I mentioned, this is just the start of a number of events taking place over the rest of the Spring and Summer. So to make sure you don’t miss out on any updates I would encourage you to sign up to our weekly One Torbay eNewsletter to keep up to date with the redevelopment and regeneration plans and these events taking place. You can do that at www.torbay.gov.uk/onetorbay.