Andrew MacGregor, of Teignmouth, writes:

I read with interest the letter about the Higher Exeter Road, Teignmouth, from Chris Clarance, a Shaldon district and parish councillor.

He clearly wants this development to go ahead, and is discounting all of the evident and documented concerns and objections regarding flood risk. He appears to have no concern about a new road entry onto a narrow B-road, and the increase in traffic the development will generate.

The greatest concerns raised by the public, and indeed both Teignmouth Town Council and Devon County Council, remain unanswered after 30 years of the developer trying to foist this estate on the people of Teignmouth. The flooding risk has been raised time and again by Devon County Council and residents of the homes, adjacent and below the proposed development.

The latest report from the county council clearly states there have been no suitable solutions offered. A recent letter by a retired planning expert presented at the town council planning committee also highlighted a number of elements included in the planning application as ‘unfeasible and unworkable’.

Cllr Clarance’s point regarding the road use and traffic flow makes no sense either. The new development will create a new junction onto a narrow B-road, about which the county council have stated no funds are available to improve it. When asked about whether a traffic risk assessment had been done to assess the impact of the new roads and traffic, all that his colleague Cllr Sylvia Russell could offer in response was a list of incidents, accidents and injuries over the last five years.

This is not a risk assessment or impact assessment of future traffic volumes and flow, by any stretch of the imagination. It appears to be merely an attempt to obscure the objections raised at a packed public meeting where the public were unanimous in their objection.

This development gained outline planning approval by the committee in July 2014. There were conditions required of the developer before any full approval would be granted. These conditions have not been met as has been pointed out by the county council. The capacity for schooling and access via the road has not been addressed either, and the 255 homes can only be fitted in by exceeding the area given outline planning permission in 2014.

Outline planning permission that had apparently lapsed before this detailed application was submitted, which means the development should be rejected.

So far we have at least three very clear reasons to reject. All perfectly legal and unchallengeable by the developer. I understand it is the job of officers to ‘enable development’ and so far they have evidently done this, where they provided clear guidance to the developer at the time of the outline approval. The developer has blatantly ignored this helpful guidance and failed to address the points on flooding and traffic effectively.

Our Conservative councillors in Teignmouth were very happy initially to allow a delegated decision, rather than call it to the planning committee. In fact Cllr Russell, a member on the town, district and county councils, incorrectly stated to another councillor that only planning committee members could call it in.

Thankfully Cllr Alison Eden was well informed and knew, as ward councillor, she was entitled to call it in. It is my belief that the officers are willing to approve this development with conditions, however, as the developers failed to deliver on previous conditions, the officers should insist on the conditions being met in advance.

The rest of Cllr Clarance’s output is both worrying and laughable. As a member of the planning committee, he is effectively pre-determining the outcome and showing clear favour to the development. I expect he will stand down from the planning committee as I believe his position on this is ‘in favour’.

He goes on to cite the Community Infrastructure Levy which Teignbridge will receive, and which the town council can expect to receive some crumbs from the big table. Certainly nowhere nearly enough to build capacity for schools or ensure roads, amenities etc are well serviced.

He also boasts local tradespeople will benefit from employment, but this will be short term only – unless of course he is referring to constant ongoing flood damage repairs that will occur if this ‘unsound’ development were to be granted an approval.

In effect Cllr Clarance is informing you that Teignbridge will pick up a tidy sum, so you should all just suck it up. It’s a demonstration of the short term fascination with money over value which the Conservatives display at every level.

As for Cllr Clarance himself, his interjection as a member for Shaldon and Stokeinteignhead is also a bit hypocritical. Shaldon has the capacity, the services and good links to Torquay, Newton Abbot and Exeter. His position on the Shaldon Parish Council committee for flood prevention certainly gave me an ironic chuckle! Perhaps Cllr Clarance is happiest about the development happening in Teignmouth, because he couldn’t possibly allow a big development such as this in his own back yard?

It’s worth noting there are no objections from people in Teignmouth, to house building and development where this is a practical, sensible and honest development. The development at Higher Exeter Road meets none of those measures and clearly does not even fit into the TE3 element of Plan Teignbridge, as it exceeds the designated area by 20 per cent.