BANTHAM Estates owner who promised ‘no development, no change and no more houses’ has now revealed plans to build 13 houses, an underground car park and a beach club at the South Hams beauty spot.

Nicholas Johnston bought Bantham for £11million from Evans Estates in 2014, and was quoted in Devon Life at the time as saying there would be ‘no development, no change and no more houses’ under his stewardship.

But, now he says he wants to build an underground car park, an underground ‘beach club’, thirteen large open market houses, six self catering apartments and eight rented houses with the ‘potential’ for five affordable houses in the parish.

Mr Johnston addressed a meeting of Thurlestone Parish Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group last month and made a presentation alongside Ryan Hooper, Bantham Estate manager, and David Hunt, estate architect and surveyor based at Great Tew, Johnson’s other estate in Oxfordshire.

Mr Johnston said that the plans for the Bantham Estate were in ‘direct response’ to the findings of the parish questionnaire and housing needs survey, carried out in the parish of Thurlestone, Bantham and West Buckland.

The questionnaire and survey found that ‘the unspoilt nature of the beaches is much valued and most people don’t want more facilities’ but they did more parking for the primary school

A ‘small majority’ felt more housing was needed with 82 per cent supporting infill development and 64 per cent supporting adding to existing clusters.

Most wanted one to three bedroom properties, most wanted to restrict ownership to principle homes, and new housing should only be to supply local need. 93 per cent of respondents were already home owners.

Of those respondents under 65, they said they needed housing between £125,000 and £350,000 or to rent a property between £500-£650 a month.

The survey concluded that ‘provision of additional affordable and rental housing for young families/couples and more reasonably priced two- and three-bedroom open market housing of mixed type and tenure and/or self build plots is needed.’

Mr Johnson told the committee that ‘it would be very difficult to address the “wish for” new housing for sale in the £125-350k price bracket requested, but that it would be easier to address the rental market’ and there are eight family houses to rent in the region of £650 a month in the plans.

He said that in order for a Section 106 agreement ensuring that they ‘would remain at a rent that would be affordable for local families in perpetuity’ he would need to build eight open market houses to balance the cost in providing these homes for rent.

He said he would ‘prefer these open market houses to be principal homes, but would not want to limit them to principal homes’.

Also on the plan are another three open market dwellings on land adjoining West Buckland, a dedicated cycle footpath from Buckland to Bantham, a children’s play area close to the rental homes in Bantham, a new boat building, restoration yard, joinery, ‘which would provide local employment’ and land for new village allotments with up to ten plots, ‘if desired’.

The proposed underground car park would cover 3,000 square metres and have the capacity for about 100 cars. Mr Johnston said that ‘would alleviate the parking issue in the village and possibly assist the pub’.

He said the car park would be ‘mainly for residents who would have an option to buy a space’ and that it would be used for parking in the summer, so that people had a short walk to their mooring, and that in the winter it would be for the storage of their boats, Bantham boats and ribs.

The proposed ‘beach club’ would be positioned next to the beach car park and would be ‘sunk into the ground and have a grassed roof’ and it may have a cafe and a pool.

The toilet block would be refurbished and in addition there would be warm showers. There would be a bigger and newer sewage facility, a better electricity supply and better broadband/mobile connectivity.

He also said that there is a ‘repair deficit on some Estate properties, including the Sloop cottages and West Buckland farmhouse’, and that by ‘offering properties at lower rents the Estate is not building a sinking fund for these repairs, such as replacing thatched roofs’. He said there needs to be a ‘long-term management plan for the Estate infrastructure and spending’.

The committee asked him about the future of Lower Aunemouth Farm, and in response Mr Johnston said that the estate had ‘taken it back’ and he wants to ‘holistically farm the estate on a modest scale’, rather than have several tenants, and it ‘may still be the main house for the Estate and there may be some development in the future’.

In Thurlestone, Mr Johnston has plans for a courtyard development of six family self-catering properties, hopefully to be interlinked with the facilities of the Thurlestone Hotel, four open market houses behind the church, restoration of the cobbled road onto the Yarmer Estate and the ‘potential’ for five affordable housing units, but these were not included in the plan.

He told the committee that there had been ‘initial discussions’ with South Hams Council in 2015, but he would ‘prefer to have some community support’ before engaging in the planning process.

He said that a ‘body of work’ could be done in three to four years, but could take 15 years overall, and Thurlestone ‘would be in the first phase as that would release money and could be rolled into bits of Bantham’.

You can view the minutes from the meeting, including links to the plans, on the Thurlestone Parish website: www.thurlestoneparish.co.uk/uploads/4/8/9/6/48967079/minutes_of_110117.pdf