The Booklet - "Unlocking Exmouth Consultation"

The booklet provides, for each option:

• a brief description (e.g. 35,000 sq/ft shop floor - same as the current Tesco on Salterton Road)
• a small plan of the proposed development
• an artists impression
• Positives and Negatives

The plan

This is in black and white is annotated to indicate the key points. These are not particularly clear and must be read carefully if you are to gain a fair understanding of what is intended. Arrows indicate where there is a view but in many cases you must be in an elevated position to see them

The artists impression

These really are rather trivial showing conveniently open streets where a steady to heavy flow of traffic is more likely. They do not appear to do more than make the document look more attractive.

Positives and Negatives

These follow the worrying modern trend of eloquent words that simply mean nothing. The modern term would be spin. Unacceptable bias is evident and some points are clearly subjective and unquantifiable. What basis is there for statements like:

• strengthens the town centre economy
• improves the appearance of the area
• makes a positive gateway to the town
• easier to get to town centre and estuary (from where?)

and is a new landscaped path along the estuary edge worthy of comment when this could be done irrespective of the development? The use of the word "fear" is unfortunate as it may influence people unnecessarily.

Option 4 "Removes the barrier of Marine Way" but does not explain why and it is not apparent why this should be the case from the plans.

The Exmouth Visitor Gateway Centre (EVGC)

You are provided with two options here. Either to keep the Imperial Recreation Ground as open space or to reserve it for the Centre. In practice the council will have made the decision to set aside the Recreation Ground for the Visitor Centre by 24 November 2005 . It is not therefore certain what impact these options will have when they are counted early next year.