Salcombe Shoreline Access Saved...

I recently commented on the proposed building of a jetty that would have changed the shoreline near Fort Charles and made the foreshore access the public currently enjoy very limited...

I am happy to say the proposal in it's current incarnation has been thrown out by Salcombe planners. Lets hope a compromise can be reached so the owner of the Old Vinery can replace his crumbling jetty and the public aren't affected.

Excited; about the Salcombe festival!!!!

Well, The Salcombe Festival is approaching fast and what a blinder it looks like it's going to be! Taking place between the 12th and 14th of June the line-up and the street entertainment looks set to be a real treat.

One of the headline acts will be the Devon Youth Jazz Orchestra on the Friday evening, they are so good they were invited to play at the Youth Proms at the Royal Albert Hall!

There are also classic keel boats from all over the South West taking place in a 5 race regatta along with a sail parade on the Sunday morning for the non racers. This will include the classic keel boat designed and raced by Uffa Fox; Vigilant.

Saturday night on Whitestrand sees The Red Bullets performing along with Kingsbridge's very own Rhythm Machine who are bound to get the evening up and kicking!

Sunday daytime sees The Red News bring some pretty good blues to Whitestrand.

Add in a whole host of street entertainment throughout Saclombe and North Sands and it should be a very very good weekend for all the family...and don't forget if you want the nights to last longer there is always the bus to Dudley's...sorry I mean Knights....no hang on I mean Fusion.....

So there is no need to be anywhere else on the Weekend of June 12th to 14th!!

Sandy Beaches in Kingsbridge (nr Salcombe)?!?!?!?

I had to laugh at this article in The Times...

Since when was The Crabshell a "short walk" to "sandy beaches"??

Also, this article makes out that £400k for a 3 bed flat adjoining the main Kingsbridge to Dartmouth road is a bargain!!! It forgets to mention that tide is out most of the time (you get roughly 2.5 hours either side of high tide when the water is navigable by boat) and your estuary view is of mud!!!I don't think you even get a mooring included for that bargain £400k price tag.....

Apologies for the "nr Salcombe" title, it's needed for the Google spider...

Salcombe Property Doldrums...

Interesting article in today's Telegraph (Friday 13th Feb) outlining that Salcombe's property market is dead.

3 properties sold in Salcombe between October and December 2008 totalling £500k compared to 15 in the same period last year totalling £8m!!!!! That's a staggering difference...the average house takes almost a year to sell...but, strangely enough the average house price decrease is only 10-15%...rents have risen c3% over the last year...

Will the media's predicted "holidaying at home" keep Salcombe busy or will it fail to materialise and force more second homeowners to drop their prices in order to sell quickly and take what profit is left?

Watch this space...

We Must Protect Salcombe's Shoreline!

There seems to be a worrying trend creeping into Salcombe's shoreline which could have dramatic consequences if it is not checked.

The owner of The Vinery on Bennett Road has put a planning application in to build a boat house on the foreshore. The proposed boathouse is a world away from the existing one. The same person also wants to build a jetty on the foreshore. These applications if approved will change the shoreline forever and more importantly set a precedent for others to follow, and follow they surely will as money is no object to the owners of these water front properties. Don't get me wrong Salcombe welcomes their money and input into the town and understands that Salcombe may well be a very different place without this "new economy", however development especially along the water side can't go unchecked.

This leads me on to the even more worrying trend concerning our foreshores; namely the beginnings of the enforcement of the "private foreshore" which each house owns. I noticed this last summer for the first time with the owners of Mill Bay who began to try to rope off areas of the beach for their own use, this trend was also apparent in the owners refusal to let the regatta committee use Fisherman's for their fireworks.

The most recent incident came when a father and his 2 sons were stopped on the foreshore near Woodcott and asked if they knew it was private land; apparently this is not the first time this has happened on this stretch of foreshore. This was recently pointed out my a member of the public who attended one of the Salcombe Town Council meetings, this person also voiced concerns that this situation could be even more of a concern once the foreshore began to be developed and the owners started to keep people off the shore and utilise it for their own private use.

Yes, legally they do own these stretches of foreshore but they are not acting in the spirit of the law, these foreshores have been used for decades by the public and the owners of these magnificent water side properties should understand that it is only by default that the foreshore is theirs and respect the use of it by the general public. The last thing we want is for rich second home owners to build their own personal "castles" and make Salcombe even more of a rich mans playground with none of the charm and simplicity that makes Salcombe great...what next private pontoons followed by a marina?

Lets all enjoy Salcombe and ensure that we retain as much of the traditional Salcombe as we can.