New phase in battle for Torquay ‘living monument’ site

The latest round in a ferocious battle for the future of a historic walled garden in Torquay will be played out in front of Torbay Council’s planning committee next week.

Tempers flared and police were called to the site earlier this year as the row boiled over.
Members of the committee will decide on a plan to knock down part of an existing home at Singleton Gardens along with the demolition of a greenhouse. The applicant wants to build a new home in its place.
Conservation groups are furious at the latest proposals.
One objector wrote: “Please listen to the local residents of Wellswood. Refusal and enforcement is the only right outcome.”
Another added: “If this application is approved it will make a total mockery of Torbay planning.”
But a supporter wrote on the council’s online planning portal: “This proposal can only improve what has effectively been a derelict site for years. The suggestion that these gardens are or indeed were a ‘community’ facility is nonsense.
“This has been and is a private garden where the public have never had access. In recent years it has been neglected and poorly used. The hysteria that has accompanied the reasonable applications by the site owners has been verging on the ridiculous.”
The site has been the subject of heated debate for several years, and this will be the fourth time it has come before the planning committee.
Earlier this year Torbay Council told OJ Developments to stop work on the site, and police were called to an incident following reports of a man being assaulted.
Plans for nine apartments and two houses were first submitted in July 2021 and refused in March 2022. Then, a plan for seven apartments and two homes was refused in August 2023.
Permission was given in March 2024 for some demolition work, but there were claims that developers had carried out work outside of the agreed permissions.
Work was halted in April and a full enforcement notice was issued in June, with the council saying there had been ‘unlawful partial demolition’ of the original dwelling. OJ Developments has appealed, but the council says the partial demolition means the March 2024 planning permission no longer applies.
Officers are now recommending that the latest plans should be approved, subject to a dozen stringent conditions. They say the project will enhance the site rather than damaging it.
There have been 34 letters of objection to the plans and 13 in support. Historic England has declined applications to list the site, saying post-war developments have changed its character from its Victorian beginnings.
In a report to the committee, planning officers conclude: “The proposal is acceptable in principle and would result in a mixture of a neutral impact and an enhancement to the character of the area and heritage assets.”
But campaigners battling to preserve Singleton Gardens have registered a number of objections.
They point to the comments of Eden project founder Sir Tim Smit, who said the walled garden was ‘a living monument’ and he was ‘dumbfounded’.