Paradise Place Local Information Portal

15th Dec 2025. There will be scaffolding going up on the 19th of Dec for a couple weeks. This does not block the road and should have negligible effects on the public and routes through.

23rd Aug 2025. So reference to the amendment application that we made in May. This application was not validated. It took several weeks to find this out. It turns out that we now need to submit 5 new documents including a new flood survey, Historic documents and further joinery details. The flood survey alone takes 6 weeks. Despite the original application already having one. This is becoming a joke now. Any how we are on track to submit this paperwork in the next week. Once submitted then there is a further approval time frame of 21 days. Let’s hope it’s approved this time. This process has been quite unbelievable considering the building was bought with planning permission. Unfortunately this was wholly inadequate to make any repairs and didn’t even include missing structural elements. One can only assume that the same level of scrutiny did not apply last time.

28th July 2025. Another disappointing update. After 7 months of my planning consultants and architect, trying to get a response from the Torbay planning department on what they need in order to allow me to start repairing my building. With absolutely zero response. I have recently found out that my amendment submission is invalid as it requires five bits of additional information. One of those is another flood survey. This in itself takes over 6 weeks. I’m also informed that failure to get these items done will mean that the application is discarded. I have asked for an extension but true to form. Torbay planners have not responded. The building is set to endure another winter without repair, and continue to collapse. It would be interesting to hear any other experiences people have had with Torbay planning? We will keep trying but bureaucracy rules for now.

14th May 2025. Latest update. Amendment to planning PP-14019473v1 has just been submitted. Now there’s an 8 week period before I find out the results. Fingers crossed everyone.

1st May 2025. Latest update. No road closures planned for the near to mid term. We have been working hard to navigate the slow planning process and will hopefully be submitting an amendment this week. We’ve no idea if this will be sufficient to get started but its the only path we have right now. We are still very keen to get started with repairing this old building. This part of the paperwork has taken 6 months on its own with another 8 weeks to pass before we even have a response. In a perfect world, work will start before the winter but I’m not holding my breath.

8th Jan 2025. Time ticks away with little happening at Paradise. We are submitting a new listed building consent application as the original one has proved inadequate to renovate the building. We are limited in any action we can take at present, so for now we have to wait. We are not expecting anything to happen before early summer at best.

11th Nov 2024. The observant among you may have noticed that the plan of starting work on the 18th of Sept, never materialised. We are working through the many challenges of the planning system and at present, do not have permission to start. Updates will follow.

13th Sept 2024. The current plan is to start some essential structural repair work on the North wall, on or around 18th of Sept 2024. I expect road closures for vehicular traffic during this time. The plan is for this work to take approximately 3 weeks.

19th June 2024 update. The first big set back has appeared. Unfortunately due to the fact that we haven’t had responses from Heritage and planning yet. My builder is unwilling to start the work planned in for the next two weeks. This is frustrating but we need to ensure that we have agreement before proceeding.

5th June 2024 update. On the 21st June, we are planning to erect scaffolding in front of, and to the side of the building. This should not affect pedestrians but is likely to restrict vehicles. The plan is for the work to take 2 weeks. One of these days there will be a lorry with a crane working on site. This will hopefully be for no more than half a day.

19th May 2024 update Some contractors will be around this week to do internal work on the building. This is not expected inconvenience anyone.

16th April 2024 update. The temporary roof is now in place. This will prevent the building from getting any worse and allow us to address some wall issues, without being hindered by the weather. The next focus of attention is going to be to make the North wall “safe”. I doubt that anything will fall off but to be sure, the next thing you will see is me knocking off all suspect parts. After speaking to my structural engineer and a builder or two. They are all of the same opinion.

8th April 2024 update. The basic services are now in place. we have access to water and electricity.

The roof structure has been supported with scaffolding and should no longer be able to fall down or put pressure on the north wall.

Now that the roof is supported, we can finally get on it to make a repair. The priority now is to make a repair to the roof at the rear, and sort out the guttering. The eventual goal is to put a complete new roof on the building. For now we just intend to make the building dry so that we can start to improve it.

The weather is not being kind at present with an endless supply of rain. This is hampering our efforts.