Brixham Ward Boundary (Furzeham with Summercombe) Brixham for such a historic town appears to have been ill treated with regard to its civil boundaries in recent years. Originally, Brixham was a large ecclesiastical parish1 covering the town of Brixham and bounded by the River Dart and Churston Ferrers parish. With the formation of Torbay, a significant part of what was once Brixham has been lost to South Hams, particularly that part to the south and west of Kennels Road (A379), Kingswear Road, and Gattery Lane/Challeycroft Road. However, this still leaves the larger part of the old ecclesiastical parish within Torbay. I would make three points: Seaward boundaries First, for reasons which I cannot fathom, Torbay has chosen to extend their ward boundaries seawards. Given that Brixham is the biggest grossing fishing port in England, one would expect to see the Brixham ward boundaries extended seawards from the town. However, the Churston with Galmpton ward completely encloses the sea around Brixham. Further Brixham Outer Harbour would appear to lie within the bounds of the Churston and Galmpton ward. Consequently, a recent proposal for a new jetty in Brixham Outer Harbour would not be a matter for Brixham but for Churston and Galmpton. This seems totally nonsensical. Boundary between Furzeham with Summercombe and the Churston with Galmpton wards Second, there is a question then as to what the boundary, particularly the western one for Brixham should be. In my view, the determinand should be the boundary of the ecclesiastical parish for Brixham. The current proposals from Torbay for the Brixham ward of Furzeham with Summercombe show the boundary to the north of the A3022 (the main road into Brixham) is more or less where it should be given the boundaries between the Churston Ferrers and Brixham ecclesiastical parishes (although probably one or two small fields close and to the north of the main road which should be in Brixham are excluded). The problem primarily lies with that part of the western Brixham (Furzeham with Summercombe) boundary which lies to the south of the A3022. The boundary of the ecclesiastical parish runs for a short distance just to the south of the main road and parallel to it before running through the middle of the Lupton Estate before reaching the A379 (Kennels Road) to the north of the kennels. My contention is the boundary of the Furzeham with Summercombe ward should be extended to cover this area. Consequently, this would include inter alia: the land between Laywell Lane and Monksbridge Road; part of the Lupton Estate including Lupton House; Guzzledown and Lupton Barton Farm; etc. Changing this part of the western boundary back to the old ecclesiastical boundary would make minimal difference to the electoral numbers as there are only a handful of properties in this area. Although this boundary alteration might seem a trivial matter to some, it is of importance in the context of the proposed Neighbourhood Plan where a settlement boundary for Brixham is proposed. Clearly, this has more weight if the open 1 The map of Brixham Parish in former times can be found on the Devon GENUKI site. countryside adjacent to the boundary is in Brixham as should be the case for the land described above which is south of the A3022. It should be noted that Churston and Galmpton are included in the same neighbourhood plan area as Brixham, and consequently such a boundary change would have a minimal impact on the plan except for giving more weight to the proposed settlement boundary policy. Boundary between Brixham and Paignton Although this is not an issue with regard to the current ward boundaries, the way the boundary has been set between Brixham and Paignton is illustrative of the way Torbay Council treats Brixham. In November 2004, Torbay Council received a proposal for the creation of town councils for Brixham and the other two towns in Torbay, ie Paignton and Torquay. However, only Brixham met the criterion for the validity of the petition and consequently was the only one of the three towns that proceeded to a Town Council (formed in 2007). The proposal for Brixham Town Council was presented in a 2005 document titled: TORBAY COUNCIL LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND RATING ACT 1997 PROPOSALS FOR A TOWN COUNCIL IN BRIXHAM This document makes a number of comments re the boundary for Brixham proposed by Torbay Council and some of these are quoted below: Para 3.4 The petitioners had failed to identify clear boundaries between the three urban boundaries in the borough. Therefore the signatories to the petition would not have been aware of the extent of the prospective town council areas. Whilst the petition organiser had submitted a map defining the boundaries of the proposed Brixham town council area at the time of the submission of the petition, it was not possible for the position to be remedied retrospectively. It was concluded that the town councils petition did not, in any respect, comply with the Act and was accordingly declared invalid. Para 4.6 The former Furzeham with Churston and St Peters with St Marys wards were each represented by three councillors to form the Brixham town area of the district. The Council considered that the boundary between the towns of Brixham and Paignton should be revised so that the Brixham boundary would more closely reflect the built up area of the town. Based on this modification, the Council put forward two new wards for the revised Brixham area. It proposed the creation of a new three member Berry Head with Furzeham ward and a two member St Marys with Summercombe ward. Para 4.7 The Commission concurred with the Council’s view that the boundary between the towns of Brixham and Paignton should be amended to more closely reflect the built-up area of Brixham. The [Electoral] Commission, however, felt that one minor amendment to the scheme should be made which would result in the modification of the boundary between the Berry Head with Furzeham and St Marys with Summercombe wards. Consequently, Torbay Council decided that the western boundary of Brixham “more closely reflect the built up area of the town” and that this boundary would additionally be that between Paignton and Brixham (para 4.7 above). The Commission accepted this proposal with only a minor amendment. The veracity of the western fringe representing the edge of the built up area of Brixham and that lying outside being Paignton must be seriously questioned. Just three examples will show how nonsensical was this proposal from Torbay Council. First, in the early 1990s, the Department of National Heritage published a “Revised List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest: Borough of Torbay, Devon, Brixham Area”. In this document, the address of the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Churston Ferrers is given as: CHURCH ROAD Churston Ferrers BRIXHAM Other listed buildings in the document in Churston Ferrers are also given a Brixham address as above. Second the address of Churston Golf Club is given as: The Clubhouse Churston Brixham Third, when the Neighbourhood Plans for Torbay were set up, three forums were formed, Torquay; Paignton; and Brixham Peninsula. The villages of Churston and Galmpton were not included in the Paignton Neighbourhood Forum but in the Brixham Peninsula Neighbourhood Forum. Consequently, it would appear that even Torbay Council had to recognise that its arbitrary boundary line between Paignton and Brixham which it had defined in 2005 was a nonsense. Summary In summary I believe: 1. That the boundaries of Brixham wards should be extended seawards into Tor Bay thus greatly reducing the seaward area of the Churston with Galmpton ward 2. That the boundary of the Furzeham with Summercombe ward should be extended south of the A3022 to cover that land which included in the old ecclesiastical parish* of Brixham. *within the Torbay area Brian Harland .