The De Moulham trust are asking for our opinions re: Shore House redevelopment.
Comments forms are available from the Town Hall, or on www.swanage.gov.uk - well, that's what it said in the announcement, but I couldn't find one.
According to:
http://www.charitiesdirect.com/charities/mowlem-land-trust-1049323.html
the De Moulham Trust has an income of £0.13m - which to me is £130,000 - and it's Aims & Objectives are:
OPEN SPACES, FOOTWAYS AND ROADWAYS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE TOWN OF SWANAGE GIFTED BY THE WILL OF THE LATE ARTHUR RAINSFORD MOWLEM FRCS TOGETHER WITH THE BENEFIT OF COVENANTS ATTACHING TO THE LAND.
Posted by Anonymous to swanageview at 6:14 PM
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44 comments:
See full application online at:
http://www.purbeck.gov.uk/planning/PlanAppDisp.asp?RecNum=34788
Here's a quick link to a photo:
http://www.snackbarswanage.co.uk/shorehousepic.htm
That doesn't look too bad.
Is it a reproduction of the plans, or an 'artistic' impression?
This is very strange. I saw something about the trust a few months ago and its objectives included things for sport and leisure. Can anyone remember this?
Curiouser and curiouser. According to the charity commission web site the objects are :
"TO HOLD AND VARY AS APPROPRIATE THE DEMOULHAM
ESTATE COVENANTS FOR THE BENEFIT OFTHE INHABITANTS OF
SWANAGE WITH SPECIAL REGARD (SO FAR AS MAY BE)TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE DE MOULHAM ESTATE LAND.
"
and the main activities are:
"FUNDING SCHEMES TO ENHANCE THE ARTS, CULTURE, SPORT,
RECREATION OR OTHER GENERAL CHARITABLE PURPOSES FOR
CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE THE ELDERLY,OTHER CHARITIES AND THE RESIDENTS OF SWANAGE IN GENERAL."
you will find this at http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/ScannedAccounts/Ends23%5C0001049323_ac_20080331_e_c.pdf
The other object come up when you search other charity information sites. It rather hard to see how they fit in with the lawful objects of a charity which can onlt be education, the furtherance of religion and the relief of poverty.
Can anybody shed light on this?
What does the trust have to do with planning? They are just there to blackmail the developer for as much money as possible for the Town.
Damn someone guessed. They have nothing to do with planning but the council would no doubt claim that they are entitled to decide whether this benefits the town, or at least the De Moulham Estate where it is situated. Yet another hurdle before anyone can build here.
Does anyone know how much of this is required to be affordable? The document which is out to consultation at the moment would make it 50% but it is a lot less at the moment. Perhaps the line to take with STC/Mowlen trust is to make 50% a condition of approval.
What is the Planning Application refernece number.
I'm confused ? A while ago there were huge boards on this site. Saying
'Planning Solutions-Local Authority Planning experts'.
We are a dynamic and proactive consultancy specialising in Local Authority Planning, in which we are considered to be the local experts'
These are the same 'planning experts' that got the Purbeck District Council to agree to converting the Worth Cafe and Craft Centre to unaffordable housing.
Are Planning Solutions still acting on behalf of this present/future application?
If you have a look at the first response then you can have a look yourself.
:)
It seems that a large proportion of the Town Council are involved with the Trust. Conflict of interest???
The council, as a body, is the "corporate trustee" in other words trust and council and trust are in effect the same thing. What sort of conflict of interest did you have in mind? The aim of the trust, as construed by the council, is to do things that benefit the town as does the town council.
I don't know. But might there be times when a decision might compromise a council member's own interests, especially in a small town such as Swanage?
In which case they are required to declare their interest and keep quiet or leave the chamber. If you read their minutes you see this happens frequently. Not wishing to give their "friends" ammunition against them I suspect they abide by this. But that is different from a conflict of interest between being a member of the council and a trustee of the Mowlem Land Trust which I am still struggling with. In any case, taking the objects as stated in the first post, looking after the parks and whatnot, a municipal responsibility if ever there was one, its hard to envisage a conflict.
If you have a look at the first response then you can have a look yourself. :)
Sorry link didn't work first time around.
http://www.planningsolutions.co.uk/
http://www.planningsolutions.co.uk/casehistories.asp
Worth Farm Barns
Part conversion, part new build to create
4 houses
(Private Client)
Good luck to those involved with this one. If the application is something that will not benefit Swanage, then contact the Planning officer, ask for an appointment to express your 'verbal' concerns. Don't do as over 300 people did last time and leave it too late. We did everything in our power last time to prevent Planning Solutions from achieving the negative outcome for Worth Cafe and Craft Centre. So do as the Develpers and Planning Solutions do, and ask for a discussion with the planning officers to find out the clear intention. Why is it that the community always seem to defending our town and villages and having to be reactive. Turn the tables and be proactive. Before its too late.
Good luck !
PDC must be battle scarred by the Worth Craft Centre fracas. The strategy out for consultation calls for all new developments above a lowish threshold of units in the villages to be 100% affordable.
Yes I think I may give up work and see if PDC give me a nice flat for free at the end of the beach.
Yes I think I may give up work and see if PDC give me a nice flat for free at the end of the beach.
Could you please expand on this comment.
PDC must be battle scarred by the Worth Craft Centre fracas. The strategy out for consultation calls for all new developments above a lowish threshold of units in the villages to be 100% affordable.
A gentle reminder does no harm:o) Fracas = noisy quarrel or disturbance. Actually I thought the protesters behaved impeccably. They jumped through all the hoops, and over all the hurdles and wham, what happened. Defeated by a casting vote.
What is 100% affordable?? How much is this. We are not talking 'social housing' just ordinary housing for ordinary people, with ordinary local jobs.
If someone builds 12 second homes on the site of Shore House this is only good for the local economy. At the very least this will contribute £20,000 in extra rates each year. These people eat out, have their windows cleaned and probably use the Mowlem etc. The chance of anyone developing the site for social housing is zilch. IF there is a genuine need for social housing in Swanage then build over the car parks at St Georges and South Beach. Two storeys on piers.
"IF there is a genuine need for social housing in Swanage then build over the car parks at St Georges and South Beach. Two storeys on piers".
The 'IF' could just be poor typing, it could also be a sceptical exclamation.
Getting on for 1200 people on the housing waiting list, approx a third of houses in Purbeck are in Swanage so fair to assume that approx 400 people waiting for housing.
The car park idea has already been made to D/PDC and it isn't quite going to house 400 people.
Also, there are loads of people not on the list, who could possibly benefit from better housing.
Get thinking!
400 people, =how many houses?
400? 200? 100?
You would get 400 homes on the old grammar school site. I'm all for doing it, but then let that be that, no more social housing.
The Grammar School and the land opposite (Westwards) are Numero Uno, including our new Health Centre, Hospital and Sports Centre.
Whatever's wrong with social housing, more the merrier says I.
I wonder why you continue to call it 'social housing'. Perhaps it is the opposite of 'anti social housing' in which case I understand why this term is being used.
What is needed is just ordinary housing that is affordable for ordinary people with ordinary jobs. For the likes of you and me and our children. Not extraordinary housing that no one around here can afford.
Whilst I entirely agree with your sentiment, I can't be bothered with the Semantics.
Social Housing is an accepted - well, by most! - term for non-market value housing.
We could call it Communist Housing, we could call it Unfair Housing, sorry, but it just happens to be called Social Housing.
What let poor people live on a prime site? Shock! Horror! The reaction I expected when I posted about the 50% requirement. Its nothing to do with what developers want. Read the strategic plan draft. 50% is what it says for Swanage and it also says there is it be no clever stuff e.g. building a mini council estate miles away as a way of providing the 50%. A surprisingly radical posture for pdc. Our town council can demonstrate their commitment by making it a condition of varying the covenants in their role as trustees. It will be interesting to see if elected councillors stand by their verbal support for affordable housing. The term, by the way, irritatingly, has nothing to do with the housing being marketed at a low price. It appears to mean affordable to housing associations.
The trust was given to Swanage Town Council by the Mowlem family, it covers all of the land behind Shore Road. the Councillors are the Trustees . They are responsible for all the back roads etc not adopted by D.C.C. they fund the repairs by way of charges when they lift the covenants to allow extensions or rebuilds.
I believe the developers have planning permission however they need the trust to lift the covenant before they can proceed. One of the aims of the Demowlem Trust before it was given to the council was to keep as much green space as possible.
The town Council through the Demowlem trust can stop this development ,if they let it through it will set a precedent to open up the other areas of green space.
It is therefore important that we all object if we want to keep this area green.
An interesting point although this aim does not come up in the objects of the trust. It did cross my mind that they were thinking of public open space rather than gardens.
How much greater is the footprint of the latest plans than the demolished building? The latter was considerably extended when it became a residential home, having previously been a private house. The trust did not balk at this, or the construction of flats on the former tennis court which was part of its garden. The trust also permitted blocks of flats which more or less fill the sites on the corner of De Moulham Road and Clifton Road and De Moulham Road and Gannetts Park. Recent development in Rabling Road also comes to mind in this regard.
I can't say I have seen any evidence of "repairs" to the various service roads on the estate. Those which have been tarmaced have been done at private expense, e.g. behind St Aldhelms Court, another example, incidentally, of a building with little green space compared to what was there before.
More interestingly there is clearly a conflict between retaining open space, if it is gardens, and maximising the trust's income from agreeing to new and extended buildings.
We dont need to build anymore houses in Swanage , theres enough as there is and enough to go round. Only problem is half of them are empty 10 months of the year.
Also am I right in saying this but is this land not unstable due to sliding into the sea or beach. Same reason why those toilets there have been shut for a while. Could be wrong though just a thought!
Shore Road was widened in the 1930s and a stone retaining wall built. That is now past its best and is crumbling and bulging. There was a long period of argument about whether the wall was the responsibility of the county council which built it or the owners of the land it stands on. Some remedial work was carried out earlier this year. I don't think this is enough of an engineering challenge to prevent development of the Shore House site especially as a stout concrete wall was constructed at the back of the site when Barrett started work on it.
Could we turn all of this around and focus on what we need in Swanage and not what we don't need.
Should we start a new thread.
What would make Swanage a good place to be for locals and tourists.
Lets get positive !!
The Town Partnership carried out an extensive exercise to find out what people want Swanage to be like in 20 years time a few years ago and produced a community plan. I think it may be on the town council web site. It was carried out under the auspices of the south west regional development authority, and in particular their coastal and market towns initiative. Nothing very radical emerged, we would all like the nice bits kept nice and the less nice bits made nice, well paid jobs for all, good schools and community facilities. No tangible targets were set which you might have expected and nobody identified as responsible for delivery. There is the occasional mention of it in council minutes, expressing disquiet that nothing has happened most recently. Perhaps we could have a thread to discuss visions of Swanage in future decades, based, one would hope, on demographic and economic trends rather that the uninformed boy scoutish atmosphere of simple good will that permeated and vitiated the last exercise.
Henry Ford famously said "If I had asked the people what they wanted they would have asked for a faster horse"
SWRHA, who hold the purse strings, are firmly of the opinion that for a project to succeed it must enjoy the support of the local community expressed through participation in the process of defining what is needed in a particular place. They do not think things parachuted in are likely to succeed. There is a 200 page manual telling you how to go about it.
Henry Ford is a strange person to mantion. His company stuck to tried and tested designs for decades when other firms were leaping ahead.
Sorry if that reads as somewhat pessimistic. If you have a good idea that you think will benefit the place and want some form of public funding you will need to convince the town and district councils to support it. You will find that they have a pretty effective veto if they do not want something to happen. Then you have to convince whoever is paying. They will expect you to show that it be a good thing and enjoys community and council support. the councils will want to be convinced that they will not be left with an open ended funded commitment when the initial funding runs out.
There are exceptions. The Tate St Ives for example was opposed by the district council but supported by the great and the good of Cornwall who made sure it happened. .
The Tate St Ives is the most disappointing modern building I have ever come across, and the collection just made me yawn. Give me the Centre Pompidou any day.
Oh dear, oh dear. Well at least you went there. I can't help thinking that this is like comparing apples and pears. Tate St Ives says its purpose is as follows "Tate St Ives presents twentieth-century art in the context of Cornwall." The quality of the collection is only as good as the artists who made it. I don't think anyone thought the St Ives and Newlyn schools were particularly earth shattering.
I cited it as an example of something achieved despite the local council. I thought we were discussing things which could benefit Swanage rather than art criticism.
The success of the Tate St Ives is not to be doubted; CABE have an assessment on their web site saying:
"Having originally estimated a permanent staff of six, supported by part time staff and volunteers, Tate St Ives now employs 69 full time and part time staff, while a number of external jobs have been created in providing services to the gallery."
and:
"About 70% of the businesses surveyed believed that the opening of the Tate had benefited their own trade. 85% believed that the Gallery had benefited the town. The West Cornwall Tourist Board survey in the same series showed that 58% of the visitors to the Tate gave a visit to the gallery as their main reason for coming to Cornwall.
Council officers estimated that less than a year after the Gallery's opening, the Tate had increased sales in St Ives businesses by 5%, representing an increase in employment of up to 15 full time equivalents. At the end of 1998, hoteliers told the Guardian of an estimated 20% increase in business."
It now has about a quarter of a million visitors a year, which is not bad for a small gallery with a boring collection.
Shore House refused due to objection from Environment Agency.
Do you know the grounds for the refusal? Are they posted somewhere on the internet?
http://www.purbeck.gov.uk/planning/PlanAppDisp.asp?RecNum=34788
If ground stability is an issue, should any building be constructed on this site?
One wonder how the excruciating Mowlem ever got permission. Besides being entirely out of character, it is built on a shoreline within the natural range of the high water mark.
The Mowlem is IMHO fine; it just needs a makeover such as:
http://www.rbstudio.co.uk/mowlem_swanage.html
Interesting. But another space for galleries? Isn't that the idea behind Pier Head? How many galleries can Swanage viably support?
While this certainly makes the Mowlem looks fresher, it is still the same building which looks and feels tired, especially the theatre (I always patronise events and films at the Mowlem because I want to support the arts in Swanage, but I prefer spending a fiver at Tower Park to see a film in more modern cinema). The same approach to freshen it was done to the Vista - a lot was spent to freshen up a building which has yet to find a sustainable (financial) use. Even the 'sails' they spent thousands on lasted only a season!
While I support the plan to give it a makeover, I would suggest that first a business study is made of the Mowlem to determine its financial viablility and its best purpose for the town.
IMHO what the town needs first and foremost is an indoor venue for families to use on inclement days (this is a complain often heard from tourists during the holiday. I know it cannot happen, but in many ways turning the Mowlem site into a shorefront indoor swimming/leisure pool with a sports hall above - perhaps a rock climbing wall - that sort of thing - would serve the town better than more galleries (though I personally have more time for arts than indoor swimming or rock climbing!). Whether the Vista will fill this role under the new owners remains to be seen, but it is quite a trip to get there for visitors.
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