Block Management in Brixham

Brixham harbour is one of the three enclosed harbours inside the statutory harbour of Tor Bay. The shoreline management plan treats the whole defended town frontage, from Churston Cove to Shoalstone Point, as a single hold the line unit across all three epochs to 2105. That unit takes in Fishcombe and Oxen Coves, Freshwater Quarry, the harbour, the breakwater and Breakwater and Shoalstone beaches. It carries 182 mapped defence features, spanning revetments, sheet piling and brick, masonry and concrete walls. Beyond the town the policy changes completely. Shoalstone Point to Berry Head is no active intervention and is projected to lose two metres by 2105, even on the highest climate allowance. Immediately round the headland, St Mary's Bay is projected to lose between 6 and 56 metres over the same period. The plan states that the policy there will lead to loss of some properties due to erosion, with 7 to 10 metres predicted by 2055. That is a 28-fold difference across a single headland. The plan has an outstanding action to develop an adaptation plan, with community engagement around potential property loss. For a block on the held frontage, the defences are planned to stay; for one near St Mary's Bay, erosion belongs in long-term reserve and insurance planning.

Standards classify a high-salinity coastal atmosphere as C5-M, very high marine, in which unprotected steel loses more than 80 micrometres of thickness in its first year against as little as 1.3 inland. Balustrades, railings, fixings and walkway structures are what that costs a Brixham block, so we survey them on a shorter interval and fund the reserve fund from what the surveys find.

The Brixham Peninsula neighbourhood plan, made on 19 June 2019, carries the policy most likely to affect a block's roof. Dormers are approved only where they sit below the ridge and are set in from the sides and eaves. They must keep features such as chimney stacks, avoid projecting additions like Juliet balconies and extractor fans, and use traditional materials with subordinate aligned windows. The plan adds that large rooflights and solar panels can be as visually harmful as a poorly designed dormer. A communal solar scheme therefore falls inside the policy rather than outside it. The plan followed a referendum on 2 May, carried by 5,570 votes to 693 on a turnout of 39.3 per cent. It was prepared by a town council rather than a neighbourhood forum. Under the Torbay Local Plan 2012 to 2030, adopted on 10 December 2015, Brixham's targets are at least 2,700 square metres of employment floorspace and 660 new homes. That is roughly a fourteenth of Torquay's employment target, with seven committed sites against Torquay's 37. The council has adopted no masterplan of any kind for Brixham. A named and costed defence scheme has been delivered: breakwater improvements approved unanimously by the council in May 2018 at about 3.853 million pounds. The work added rock armour to the outer face and raised the structure by half a metre. The council records that the breakwater acts as a sea defence and flood protection structure for the town as well as the harbour. For a block, roof, rooflight and solar proposals should be tested against the neighbourhood plan before they are specified.

Towns and Villages We Cover Around Brixham