Decision day looms for plans for ‘marina village’ at Knapp House

Sarah Howells Wednesday, February 6, 2013
9:58 AM

Torridge District Council’s planning committee will discuss the application at its meeting tomorrow morning.

The proposed site of the Torridge Marina

PLANS for a 250-berth ‘marina village’ with up to 295 new houses at Knapp House in Northam will be discussed at a planning meeting tomorrow (Thursday).

Torridge District Council’s planning committee will meet at Bideford Town Hall at 9.30am to discuss the application which was deferred from last month’s meeting.

At the meeting in January, councillors heard speakers both for and against the application, but raised concerns over documents that had arrived as late at an hour before the meeting.

They claimed they could not make an informed decision on such a big development without thoroughly reading through all the information first.

The plans, submitted by developers Len Tanner and Paul Hevingham, also include a hotel, a 90-bed care village, a school site and a medical centre.

At the previous meeting, Councillor Chris Leather said: “I was up all evening looking at this application, and was still going over it at 1am.

“Until we’ve got this extra information we cannot make an informed decision.”

Last month more than 100 people turned up to the meeting and booed the decision to defer the application.

The item will be the first on tomorrow’s agenda, and it is hoped a decision will be made this time round.