Seaton Regeneration Area Plan :: Planning Support Statement

Key Land Use Aspects of the Development

Housing

3.1 The proposals contained within the application site will provide some 385 dwellings of the total amount proposed of approximately 500 on the Seaton Regeneration site as a whole. The housing is proposed in the central part of the site, extending as far across on the eastern side to the boundary of land owned by Axe Riverside and the Council’s riverside workshops. A housing density of some 42 dwellings per hectare is proposed, which will allow a mix of residential dwellings from one bedroom up to a small number of five bedroom units. Liatris Holdings has secured the commitment of a major national house builder to submit the details of the housing development upon the grant of outline consent and implement the scheme. As part of a Section 106 Agreement, an element of affordable housing will be provided – the scale of which will be negotiated with the Council on the basis of an agreement that a reduction in the 40% target will be necessary, arising from the abnormal costs of the site development, particularly the need to raise site levels to avoid flooding.

3.2 The design statement submitted by Pegasus Planning indicates that the proposal will comprise a mix of two and three storey housing with the opportunity for three and four storey development (and exceptionally, five storey) at various gateways or other similar parts of the housing site.

Public Open Space

3.3 The development will provide up to 2.35 hectares of public open space to cater for the passive recreational needs of existing and new residents and strategic landscaping to soften the visual impact of the new development on surrounding areas. New children’s play facilities will also be provided. The precise location of the open space areas will be the subject of further details. The developer would contribute in the Section 106 Agreement to ensure the maintenance of areas of public open space in the future.

3.4 The applicant acknowledges that the detailed design of particularly the housing areas on the site will be important and has agreed with the Council that a ‘design code’ should be agreed for the development with which any reserved matters submissions dealing with the detailed design and layout of housing proposals should comply. The applicant’s design advisers, the house builders who are committed to develop the site and the Council’s planning officers are currently discussing the format of this design code and have indicated their willingness to involve local consultation groups in these discussions. The agreement to a design code would give the Council a commitment to high quality design on particularly the housing part of the site to ensure that the development would retain a sense of place in accordance with the most recent Government design guidance.

Retail Development

3.5 The proposals within the scheme are for a new convenience goods store of approximately 4,645 sq.m. gross floor space (including café/restaurant) of which 2,323 sq.m. would be convenience and comparison goods net sales area. The majority of this sales area would be for food retailing and provide a new modern food store of the type which Seaton does not currently have. A full retail assessment of the proposals has been carried out in this regard, which includes a consumer survey of retail habits in the Seaton area. This shows that a significant proportion of existing food retailing trips from Seaton residents takes place outside the town. Whilst there is an existing food store in Seaton (Co-op) there is clearly not a competitive environment and the range and choice of facilities which Government policy in PPS6 seeks to promote. The Council in 2001 recognised this situation and granted consent for a food store of approximately 2,000 sq.m. gross in area (net trading – circa 1,600 sq.m.) so that the net convenience goods element of the proposed store within the application proposals is similar to that previously the subject of a resolution to grant consent.

3.6 The new comparison goods retail warehousing is also justified in terms of need for it and lack of impact and will widen the range of shopping facilities available in Seaton for both existing and future residents within the catchment area.

3.7 The location of the convenience goods store is within the defined town centre as shown in the Local Plan whereas the retail warehousing lies outside the town centre. The retail assessment submitted with this application demonstrates that Government policy requirements for the location of the new food store and retail warehousing are passed and that in particular there are linkages from the new retail development with the town centre through the new square to the town centre and Fore Street in particular.

3.8 Retail development on the site (which may also have some smaller specialist stores within the mixed use building on the corner of Harbour Road and Underfleet) is associated with a large new car park close to the town centre. The new stores will also employ some 260 staff (both full and part time), a benefit recognised in the Planning Brief for the site.

Tourism

3.9 The interests of tourism in the Seaton area are enhanced by the proposed development, particularly in the form of the facilitation of the Council’s Visitor Centre and the Seaton Wetland Nature Reserve. In allocating the site for development in its Local Plan, the Council recognised that the Lyme Bay Holiday Village would be closed, particularly given the reduction in its size over recent years. Although the loss of those visitors to Seaton is regretted, the opportunity is being seen by the Council to enhance visitor numbers in the area through the construction of the Visitor Centre. This is forecast to generate approximately 250,000 visitors a year to Seaton with the wetland nature reserve adding a further 30,000 visitors per annum.

Community Benefit

3.10 The benefits to Seaton in relation to the principles of development are outlined in the planning policy for the site and the Council’s Planning Brief. The removal of the holiday camp and its replacement with housing and improved retail facilities will provide a better quality shopping environment for existing residents and enhancements to public open space and the tourism facilities available for visitors. The socio-economic chapter of the environmental assessment also identifies the benefits of income from new residents into the local economy, whether it be proposed new retail facilities or spin offs to the town centre. New areas of public open space will also be provided as part of the development which will be available to existing residents, whether they are green areas with views over the marshland or the River Axe or indeed enhancements to the existing children’s play/escape park in the north western corner of the site. There is the potential to provide new public areas and facilities in the area occupied by the boatyard in the south eastern corner of the site. The deliverability of these proposals relies on negotiations between the Council/developers and the existing land owners. The land concerned lies outside the control of Liatris Holdings and the company cannot therefore guarantee the delivery of this particular part of the master plan for the regeneration site as a whole.

Flood Risk/Drainage

3.11 The application site is contained within the flood plain of the River Axe and in order for development to proceed in principle, it was/is necessary to obtain the approval of the Environment Agency for an appropriate flood alleviation scheme to be in place. This involves a number of key measures: -

a) The filling of the site to raise its levels in order to ensure that development platforms would be above the flood risk level. The filling exercise requires the importation of material from outside the site and has been assessed in detail in the environmental impact assessment not simply in terms of the drainage issues but also the traffic/HGV movements that will be required to bring in the fill in the worst case. Approximately 256,000 cu.m. of fill will be required. The applicant is looking at alternative transport measures of bringing in the fill, such as by river, but the environmental assessment has to look at the worst case of HGVs importing that material to ensure that the environmental impact of that worst case has been considered and, where appropriate, mitigated.

b) In addition to the land raising exercise, a system for surface water flood alleviation has been agreed, which involves inter alia the construction of a flood channel running north/south through the centre of the site, which takes the form of an open area with landscaped banks which, for the most part, is used for pedestrian access. However, at times of flooding, the channel/pedestrian access floods and takes water through the site from south to north before being discharged in an expanded water course on the northern boundary. The water course then discharges at a controlled rate into the river.

3.12 The combination of the flood alleviation measures will mean that the existing flood risk of the area will reduce and the localised flooding that is experienced in various parts of and adjacent to the site will be alleviated.

Transportation

3.13 As part of the environmental impact assessment there has been an assessment of the impact in traffic terms of the development, from the housing proposed, the retail and the impact of the up-graded tourism facilities. There is a major role for public transport in accessing the development as a whole, given the Seaton Tramway and the station proposal in the western part of the site. However, it is recognised that a significant proportion of new residents on the scheme will arrive and depart the site by means of private car and the assessment proceeds on that basis. Agreement has been reached with the County Surveyor that the main access into the site should be off Harbour Road and that this is of a suitable standard (through traffic light control) to access the major part of the development. A secondary access off Underfleet is provided to serve the Council car park and any employment development adjacent to that site. It is not necessary in traffic/highway terms for the access off the Underfleet to serve the remainder of the development and this is prevented in any event by the prohibition of crossing the Seaton Tramway.

3.14 The traffic assessment examines the effect on the highway network of the development once completed and also looks at the construction process. This relates not just to the physical construction of the development over its predicted period of completion but also the worst case that the fill required to raise the site levels will all be brought into the site by road. In that event, a number of defined construction routes for HGVs are expected to be agreed with the County Council to ensure, as far as possible, that HGVs bringing material into the site will not need to progress through Axemouth nor along Harbour Road if access could be obtained through the site at its extreme eastern end.

Pedestrian Access

3.15 Key pedestrian access routes are proposed on the master plan and these are shown on the more detailed master plan proposals. These show principal routes north/south through the site and also east/west through the development including the proposed new square to the town centre. There are three principal east/west routes lying along the northern boundary adjacent to the proposed marshland/nature reserve through the northern part of the site linking towards the car park and play area/skate park on the north western side and through the southern part of the site in front of the proposed new retail stores to the town centre. The east/west routes link with the two main north/south routes running through the centre of the site and also through the Axe Riverside area. The accessibility within the site and to key areas on its fringes, ie, the Axe Riverside, Underfleet Car Park and the town centre are therefore provided.

The Boatyard and Axe Riverside Area

3.16 As indicated in the introduction to this statement, Liatris Holdings together with the Council control the vast majority of the Seaton Regeneration site and all of the land contained within the application area. There are other land ownerships that are not controlled by Liatris Holdings which are the subject of development proposals in the Planning Brief for the Regeneration Site. The purpose of the application is twofold. First, to enable the majority of the Regeneration Site proposals to be delivered by Liatris Holdings in accordance with the Planning Brief but secondly to show that in future, should other land owners in the currently excluded area wish to co-operate with the comprehensive development, the Liatris Holdings’ proposals will facilitate those future development proposals coming to fruition. Any decision on development proposals on land not controlled by Liatris lies rests with the land owners concerned and the Council to provide development in accordance with the Planning Brief. However, it has been helpful for the public consultation process for the application to show that, taken in wider context, the Council’s proposals in the Planning Brief for the excluded areas including the boatyard and the south eastern parts of the site can take place and the environmental assessment has been carried out in that regard.