Jim Parker: 'This is our chance to put some soul back into Torquay town centre'

Took a quick walk down town the other day. It is in a sorry state, isn’t it?
Some people, including yours truly, will say it is no worse than other high street throughout the country but frankly that is of little comfort. Selfishly, I am only concerned with my home town.
Years ago, going for a stroll through the town centre of Torquay on a Saturday morning was a kind of ritual, bumping into people you know, having a natter and then heading off to play football or cricket in the afternoon.
Sadly, those days are long gone. A lot of us locals avoid the high street and the kind of people that now seem to frequent the place, especially at the Castle Circus end.
Don’t get me wrong. I am the last person to knock the place we call home. It is a wonderful place and we are lucky to live here, but Torquay is one of our challenges. It has lost a little of its soul.
Thankfully, unlike many of those areas around the UK, the fate of Torquay town centre is in our own hands and we actually have a great chance to fetch out the regeneration fairy and fix it.
That mission took a massive step forward last week when Torbay's planners gave the go-ahead to the game-changing and multi-million pound Union Square redevelopment project in the town.
It wasn’t all plain sailing in the debating chamber, with the scheme’s early design being described as ‘Stalinist’. The claim came from Dr Rodney Horder, on behalf of the Torquay Neighbourhood Forum, who told the planning committee some people thought the drawings were ‘reminiscent of post-war Stalinist buildings – more appropriate to 1950s Warsaw or Leningrad’.
Gladly, he went on to say that the forum was in favour of the principle of reshaping the area in what will be the biggest project of its kind in Torbay since the building of the Fleet Walk shopping centre in the 1980s.
The committee gave its unanimous backing to the scheme. They heard that the designers had come up with changes since the ‘Stalinist’ original drawings were seen, including different coloured bricks.
The Union Square shopping centre and parts of the town’s historic market will now be knocked down to make way for 100 new homes, new businesses and a public square.
Developers Willmott Dixon Construction, private sector regeneration programme partners with Torbay Council, also plan to knock down the south and west elevations of the Pannier Market and remove internal fixtures. The committee agreed unanimously to the partial demolition of Union Square along with the demolition of nine shops fronting on to Union Street and Market Street. Redevelopment of the site will include 99 homes, amenity and business spaces, while the existing multi-storey car park will be kept. At least 20 of the new homes will be ‘affordable’.
But some councillors had concerns over the amount of affordable homes, and said the blocks could have been built higher to accommodate more.
Lib Dem leader Swithin Long said: “This is a real missed opportunity for a council-owned site. The council could have sent a huge message to the market that we expect more than the minimum amount of affordable housing.”
Lib Dem colleague Nick Pentney said he was disappointed that the development was ‘policy compliant’ when it could have been ‘policy exemplary’, when it came to affordable homes. And Ras Virdee, another Lib Dem councillor, was concerned about the future for the shops and businesses which will have to go to make way for the scheme.
Committee chairman Martin Brook was adamant and said: “I am extremely excited about this, and it is long overdue. When I look at this plan – wow – it’s going to bring millions back into the town centre.”
Cllr Long put into context his concerns, especially over affordable homes numbers. He said he was the councillor in charge of regeneration when the Union Square was first mooted. He said that back then there was talk of 250 housing units included in the scheme with 20 per cent of them legally having to be affordable. Now we have just 99 with 20 per cent affordable.
He said: “If this scheme is game-changing it should be aspiring to be a little bit better than policy compliant.”
One of his other main concerns was that the Iceland low-cost store currently located in Union Square should be found another home in the town when the time came. As for the overall redevelopment, Cllr Long insisted: “I am absolutely in favour.”
Cllr Chris Lewis, current portfolio holder for regeneration, said after the meeting: “I am delighted that the scheme went through and it got the full support of the committee. That’s the next step in the puzzle. It is 18 months since we had the partnership with Willmott Dixon who put these plans together.”
He added: “You cannot go higher with the building because financing it then becomes dearer. Since the Grenfell tower block tragedy regulations are such that to build higher would cost a lot more money because there are more safety measures. You cannot go any higher because it doesn't stack up.”
Regarding affordable homes, Cllr Lewis said: “We had what the regulations said — 20 per cent on a brownfield site. But it is something we are looking at to get more affordable housing there. If it stacks up we will do it. We did what we are supposed to do with the 20 per cent but we are not ruling it out and we will look at it going forward.”
As for the ‘Stalin look’ of the proposed buildings, Cllr Lewis said: “It is very difficult. Some people like a modern style and others like the old style. You cannot please everybody. At the end of the day a building is a building and they have done a good job. There was a question about whether we wanted a green space. We could have made the development bigger without a park area but we decided we didn't want to do that. We wanted to make it as attractive as we can.”
He was blunt when talking about the town centres of today, including Torquay: “We have the internet and we have out-of-town shopping yet the high streets have not changed for hundreds of years. The high streets have not shrunk yet people are surprised to have empty shops? It is no surprise that we have empty shops. We have bitten the bullet and done something about it.”
He said the plan was always for more homes and leisure and less retail at the top end of Torquay town.
“At the top end of the town we have things like a cinema and we want to make it more residential. That does bring people back into the town.”
He added: “People talk about independent shops. The council cannot do everything. It is not for Torbay Council to decide what shops are going to be there. That’s for the private sector to decide. We are here to facilitate and improve the offer in the town which we are doing. If you make the town a little more affluent you are going to get the shops coming in. It is a Catch 22 situation.
“With the Debenhams site on the harbour, if you have a four-star hotel with cafes and bars that will up the game and you will have people wanting to come in and open independent shops.”
He revealed: “We have had investors visit the Bay. It is early days but they have been down and seen that we mean business.”
Let’s hope a deal can be secured... and secured soon. Then, perhaps I can return to my Saturday morning ritual.