Longboat storey debate goes on and on

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Longboat storey debate goes on and on - Fairlynch Museum

By: Michael Downes
Added: 26 January 2012

Another landmark has been reached in the long-running battle over the proposed development of the Longboat Café, pictured above.

Voting slips have been sent out to ask residents for their views, including whether the existing café should be demolished and replaced, and if so, whether the height should be kept to one storey and in a traditional rather than in a contemporary design.

Residents are also being asked to say whether East Devon District Council (EDDC) should categorise the building as a 'non designated local asset of historic interest.'

The result of the poll, which will cost £500, is keenly awaited by Budleigh Salterton Town Council along with the Otter Valley Association which have already expressed their opposition to the café's development.

Longboat Café owners Brent and Jane Hushon revised their plans after withdrawing their original application to transform the building into a glass-fronted, mezzanine-floored restaurant.

Disappointed at the setbacks and admitting that "it can feel a bit bleak at times" Jane Hushon has expressed surprise at the degree of opposition. "We wonder if we are completely out of kilter with everyone else in enjoying good quality, affordable food in places with magnificent views." The couple's original inspiration for their plans was apparently the Jersey Boathouse http://www.theboathousegroup.com/boat-house in the Channel Islands.

Support for the couple has come from a number of fellow-traders in Budleigh who point out that a 2010 English Heritage report judged that although the building was "an interesting component" it had undergone extensive and damaging alterations which seriously undermined its claims to inclusion in any historic listing.

Furthermore, they say, it was always simply a utility store and was not mentioned as having any special significance in the Town Design Statement approved and adopted by EDDC in October 2004. http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/budleigh_salterton_town_design_statement.pdf

"Very few planning applications for what on the face of it could be described as a relatively modest proposal can have provoked such a considerable amount of third party interest," was the comment made in 2009 by EDDC planning officers about opposition to the original application. "Even less have given rise to such strong and diametrically opposed feelings about the proposal."

The officers noted that opinions upon the need for the new facility in terms of visitors to the town were similarly divided, between those that would prefer to see the town remain a quiet and peaceful resort and others that see the proposal as a means of attracting more visitors, "for the benefit of the vitality and viability of the town and enhancing its visitor infrastructure."

Various Friends of Fairlynch have been involved in the debate over the last few years, including David Daniel, Chairman of the Budleigh Longboat Association. Since 2007 when the original planning application was made, members of the Association have opposed the demolition of what they claim is the last Admiralty Coastguard Longboat House in the country.

English Heritage has listed the Coastguard cottages and rocket apparatus shed on the cliff above and access steps leading to the boathouse, citing these as being amongst the most complete examples in the country. It excluded the boathouse from the listing although David Daniel claims that this exclusion was only by a narrow margin, and that the Ministerial decision "encourages it being considered as a non designated asset of historical value."

"Not everyone is concerned about the loss of the last known example of an Admiralty Longboat house, but we are," he says. "The tragedy is that there are plenty of architects who would relish the challenge of restoring this building so as to retain its historic links whilst adapting it to a modern beach café."

His suggestion that those who care about protecting this landmark of Budleigh's maritime past should contact EDDC's Chief Executive to designate it as a local heritage asset has been incorporated in the voting slip recently sent to Budleigh residents. "Under policies enshrined in something called PPS5 and the new Localism Act EDDC has the power to save this building."

The site on the beach in Budleigh Salterton lies within the footprint of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site and the AONB.

Fairlynch Museum's Local History Room has kept a record of the controversy thanks to the efforts of local resident Dr Anita Jennings. A Friend of Fairlynch, she has completed what she calls Volume I of the Longboat Saga, which runs up to July 2011. "I have started making notes for the sequel, as it proceeds," she says.