The quayside consultation meeting in St Edmund’s Church on Monday evening illustrated Kingsbridge as a town coming together in great numbers to voice its unanimous opposition to the South Hams District Council proposal for the quayside.

Sadly, this great expression of local feeling and opinion was met only with arrogance and a display of glib conceit by the representative from district council.

Given that both South Hams and Kingsbridge have exceeded their joint local plan five-year housing quota, the question about the appropriateness of a multistorey block of luxury flats and unnecessary shops and restaurants along the ­quayside can only be summarised as a purely-for-profit vanity project.

Not only does the proposal sacrifice crucial parking, but it removes the enjoyment of an amenity that has served as the picturesque heart of Kingsbridge.

Furthermore, these excess stores and cafes will only serve to dilute the tenuous profitability of Fore Street.

More worryingly is the ­council’s stance as the ­’developer’. It would appear that the council is now no longer happy to “regulate” and “manage” the land, but wants to participate in the binge of development that is devouring our public spaces, particularly here within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

One would have hoped that the council’s role was to protect the AONB, rather than in the words of its representative, “urbanise it”.

The continuous theme was the council’s commitment to providing “affordable ­housing”. “Social housing” seems to have dropped off the agenda already.

If the council was to use the oft-mentioned £2m allocated to the design, consultancy and other professional fees ­earmarked for the hotel and apartment block, it could build 40 affordable or social houses on the sites that it already owns right now, rather than waiting two or three years for this ­bitterly opposed, grotesque vision of the quayside to ­materialise.

Similarly, the money accrued from the sale of these could be then used to repair the ­quayside wall.

However, this seems rather at odds with SHDC’s new appetite for money generation through development speculation.

History has proved many times that, when a council ­deviates from its role of serving its residents, in this case becoming a high-end developer at the top of the property market, it usually proves to be ruinous and ultimately the local council tax payer will have to pick up the bill.

Justin Haque

and Dr Katy Bowen

Campaign to Protect Rural England, South Hams