“If I had £50m to invest in property development where would I spend it?

Torbay with it's ageing population, schools searching for pupils, poor road and rail networks, out on a limb, lack of manufacturing (except for window frames) failing hotels, decreasing tourists, holiday camps closing, a council that considers putting £35m into a hub for it 's employees, failing to collect it's debts, this list goes on and on.

Biffo is right the place is broke and no one wants to invest there, I am not related.

Torquay, Torbay or whatever it is called is still Torquay, Paignton and Brixham to me. Me I am a Quantity Surveyor, work for one of the major players in the West Midlands, and times are tough out here, it has got to the stage that I do not get paid until a job is finished. The developers with no reputation, as another correspondent says on here, are in debt to banks to the tune that the banks now control them with their experts taking control of the debts.

This country is in a hell of a state.

Someone asked to name other seaside towns that are successful ..Bournemouth, Brighton, Scarborough come to mind but they are struggling also, it is called a recession by the way.

Torquay, Paignton and Brixham have their individual beauties and they should be kept that way, do you really want it spoilt?”

“.

@ adam 10.01
"Biffo - what rubbish. As always your comment was a rambling illiterate stream of ill-informed and inaccurate statements. "

Good wind-up attempt Adam but there is a world of difference between 'developers' (Palm Court, Warren Road etc) and solid companies like Whitbread/Premier Inns, Wetherspoons and others with good balance sheets not 95% in hock to the greedy bankers.

Someone mentioned HMV but they are only taking over the Waterstone premises because they are in the same group and it's better than helping out DSG utilising Dixons old shop.

.”

“I would suggest that Bye takes a serious look at Scarborough and their more balanced economy. Looks like, as in Torbay a huge amount of regeneration has gone on in the near past. But the difference being it,s not all tourism based. A new £9 million business park on the way and the employment figures are very revealing

12.8% manufacturing , only 18 % tourism ! as usual public sector comes in highest at 30% but that,s lower than Torbay i would think. But the great difference 2.5% unemployment.

looks like the gritty Yorkshire folk could
teach the Torbay council a thing or two.”

“Biffo - what rubbish. As always your comment was a rambling illiterate stream of ill-informed and inaccurate statements.

If you don't have anything constructive to add to the debate then don't bother commenting. Saying investors have no money (a ridiculous statement) and that Torbay is "dead" doesn't help anyone.”

“What a positive comment from Biffo! There is no money, Torbay is going downhill and nothing can be done to save it.

Or is it better to just give up or to look at other resorts that have turned themselves around, and look at ways of creating a sustainable local economy?

As Biffo knows everything, can he explain why other resorts have tried to rejuvenate and been successful?”

“Mark I will not be here in 60 years time , that is true.

All these stories centre around money and visions

There is no money in the bank of the investors, if there was money then the hotels that have failed in Warren Road would not be being changed into
apartments that no one who is local can afford, two of the new developments are
already owned by the Banks to get their money back from the failed developers. I will not name them but it is obvious who they are. There is NO money to invest at the moment, there is money to invest where a return can be guaranteed, but that is not Torquay. The town is rubbish and the only reason that HMV are pushing for a short term flirt with Union Street is the perilous state if the opposition, WHS.

Shops, hotels and the like will not bring work to Torquay, it is dead, people do nor want to holiday here anymore, you can jump on to a plane at any major city in the UK and fly to more or less guaranteed weather.

Visions are great but seldom come true, well done Bye on his vision, I can not tell you what it is about because he mis-manages it, and so does his number two, Lewis. Both of the men have past histories of failure. What have we gained from the vision so far , all I can see us a bloody balloon on the seafront and little else. Just look at the Bay no one can be proud of it, NO ONE.

I want he Bay to succeed and become once more the premier resort in this country, it is a wonderful and beautiful
place.

Stan, Baggins, Coffin Dodger and Paul Ward all have great points to make we should take note of that.

I just wanted my kids to grow up in the Bay and enjoy life like I did, but they saw the light and better employment and left their roots. Such a shame.”

“If this was to happen it would be a massive improvement to what's currently there. Fingers crossed the old moaners don't get in the way this time.

And Biffo - I for one hope I'm still around in 60 years time. There are people under the age of 30 who live in Torbay - you wouldn't guess this from the comments. It's almost selfish that all the OAPs (most of whom probably weren't even born here) want to turn the place into a retirement town with no future.”

“.

.@observer 18.05 "The eastern prom from the banjo to the marina office is badly rotted and they showed us the underside photos at the Tormohun community partnership meeting, but the round banjo part isn't."

Baggins would say that such is the skill of local scaffolders - plenty of evidence of that on Rock Walk - the eastern prom could have been underpinned sucessfully and cheaply 3 years ago for about the same cost as the fences and associated groundworks.

Simply another Health & Safety over-reaction brought about by fear of insurance claims.

.”

“It's the job of Bye, Parrock and co to find solutions... and the job of the locals to complain.

It's all our job to propose solutions. The Vision is not perfect, but it is better than doing nothing. Constantly complaining without grounded reasons for doing so does neither group any good - the council get no constructive proposals and the locals protest groups look like people who will object to anything. Neither is good for the future of the Bay.”

“What a muddled world jobsworth lives in. He welcomes, quite rightly, debate stimulated by these proposals but rejects the idea of criticism and disagreement, which is what debate is all about.
Progress will follow debate on all the alternatives, but we are only ever presented with one, which means you can only be for it or against it.
Partial Observer It is the job of Bye, Parrock and co to go out there and find these alternatives, us commenters can only comment on what is put before us.

As for the comment "anything is better than nothing" consider that this is the most important site in Torquay, get it wrong and things will be made far far worse. You could end up with a soulless place with no appeal to either locals or tourists.
Yes, just for once let us have a debate without all the insults and accusations levelled at those who happen to not like what is on offer.”