FAILING to include Cliff Road residents in a meeting of main asset owners over eroding Pennington Point, Sidmouth, has delayed debate on a consultant’s report.

East Devon District Council’s executive board agreed on Wednesday to hold a meeting between officers, consultants Royal Haskoning and owners of 12 cliff-top homes before debating what, if any, action to take to protect the Point.

In February, EDDC held a meeting with Royal Haskoning and main asset owners Devon County Council, Environment Agency and South West Water. The National Trust, main beach owner, did not attend.

Subsequently consultants told EDDC there was no justification for emergency or coastal protection works at Pennington Point.

Addressing the executive, Peter Hand, chairman of Salcombe Hill Association; one of 16 residents at the meeting, asked why Cliff Road householders had not been asked to that meeting.

“Did the council not consider it necessary to contact or consult with the owners of these assets, who in 2001 had offered to give the council a further 15 metres of their gardens to enable a new cliff top Coastal Path to be rebuilt?” he asked.

He said the value of keeping Hangar Path and Alma Bridge as an asset for Sidmouth had been recognised by Sidmouth Chamber of Commerce and Sidmouth and District Hospitality Association.

“The income to the town by users of the Coastal Path in the main tourist season was assessed in 2002 at £250,000.

“Was this benefit, certainly an asset to Sidmouth, taken into account as your report does not indicate that these bodies were consulted?” he asked.

The accuracy of the report was questioned by Robert Crick, chairman of the Vision Group for Sidmouth.

He said: “Photographic and Ordnance Survey records confirm residents’ perceptions that the Point did not recede by 55 metres (180 feet) between the 1880s and 1990s.

“I believe a decimal point has been misplaced, which suggests that this report is fatally flawed.”

Leader Councillor Sara Randall Johnson asked the executive to defer the matter to a future meeting and asked officers and Royal Haskoning to meet with those at the meeting and go through the report to check issues detailed as incorrect.

Addressing the executive, resident Miriam Brown said attaching mesh to capture falls, drilling boreholes to drain away water and building a multi-million pound retaining wall would not stop Salcombe Cliffs from crumbling.

Neither did she favour putting thousands of tons of pebbles down, which waves “might hurl at the cliffs, making the situation far worse.”

She suggested widening the River Sid to nudge it westwards as “over centuries the course of the river has moved gradually eastwards.”

Completing a statement from Mr Hand, Graham Keen from SHA said: “This council seems to have lost the plot in relation to the future of Sidmouth.”

EDDC should have developed a forward plan for the town instead of one for Seaton and Exmouth, he said.

“What the town needs is protection of the cliffs at toe level and drainage at the top, so as to reduce both types of erosion.

“We urge you to at least put in place the necessary prerequisite of a Shoreline Management Plan which was promised in 2005 but never delivered.”

After the meeting Mr Hand said councillors had “escaped serious debate.

“It is kicked into touch at the moment, we will have to see.”

Councillor Graham Liverton, portfolio holder environment, said: “The best way forward is to work together on this because it is a complicated issue.

“There are very emotive feelings on this that affect the whole town, not just those in Eastern town.”

He emphasised EDDC only owned Pennington Point, “what is left of it” and the rest by other agencies.

“We have led the way on this, I am not happy that someone says we are inactive. We led the way on getting these agencies together in order to resolve the issue.

Story in the Sidmouth Herald