Oldway Mansions Disgrace

Merse I expect that millions of people have enjoyed having their photo taken on that wonderful staircase and when I said Oldway was the Jewel of Paignton, I should have really said Torbay as there is no other buiding as grand as Oldway anywhere else in Torbay.

You have councillor Chris Lewis saying: "We will end up with £1million and possibly more, a fantastic hotel right in the centre of Preston and Paignton, much needed development but without spoiling the gardens or views of the house, and still have open spaces."

What a joke statement that is when Urban Splash will be building over 160 homes on the site, so where are they planning to build them all, on the roof of Oldway? We are talking about two million pounds of repairs required and we can’t afford it,? yet Bye is planning to borrow £36million to centralise Torbay town hall staff on a single site( Town Hall) and also build a 44,000 square foot office block in the car park next to the Town Hall without having any tenants secured. There is also the question what will happen to the 14 office buildings being vacated by town hall staff when office space is not in demand.

Wreck Walk has so far had THREE MILLION POUNDS spent on it and its still as I write hiding behind those boards and what you can see tells you we can go on calling it Wreck Walk for sometime still to come.

Urban Splash are not even paying upfront, they have two years tp pay the council the one million pounds and then providing their accountants don’t do the job you know they will be expected to do, ther council may get a bit more three years later.

I have asked the question before just where does all our money get spent. Well we pay people on the council over £150.000 per a year in wages for a start plus fat pensions and it’s no wonder there is no longer any money left to even keep the Bay looking nice.

I voted for an elected Mayor as we were promised we would see and end to all the waste and the Bay restored to its former glory, what did we get? We got an estate agent that I can now see why he gave that job up; he must have lost millions just under valuing properties for starters.

He gave us the ugly balloon and Wreck Walk and tried to give away Babbacombe Downs and just what has he really done that he can look back after five years in the job he can be really proud off? Nothing and the people of Torbay will get rid of him in nine months time, only we are now stuck with this elected mayor idea for many more years to come and so we really will need to make sure the next one is a person who really cares for Torbay.

I don’t think I have ever felt as mad as I do now toward Bye, how have we let one man get away with doing what ever he wants how come we have let him just give away Oldway Mansions, its no wonder he seemed to get on so well with Chris Roberts as they are both fools and dreamers who promise the world but deliver nothing

Sadly I fear Oldway is lost forever as a place that belonged to the people of the Bay, it really is nothing more than a disgrace and Bye should be hanging his head in shame for doing what he has done.

Take a last look at what once belonged to us as it will never ever look the same once it’s a hotel with 160 homes built around it.

It really is such a sad day for Torbay......this decision stinks and it's fitting that the odious Nick Bye will be remembered as the man that did sweet f.a for Torbay and then gave away Oldway.

A million measly quid and a few dozen people employed on the min. wage is the only payback we can expect, these national hotel chains tend to source all their food, equipment etc centrally.....so dont expect the local traders to benefit in any way, whatsoever.

I grew up near there and have such happy memories of long summer afternoons spent in the grounds.....riding bikes, football, cricket etc etc

Like many from Torbay, i even got married there but hey, like i said, their was happy memories too....

It would be a cracking place to move TUFC to and build a ground with big stands and use the main building as a function hall and club house, if I had the money I would buy it off the council and give it to the club!

breaking news breaking news breaking news breaking news

Oldway Mansions has been saved, it will now not be destroyed as planned by the clown Nick Bye and turned into a budget hotel.

A mystery Australian sports lover has stepped in at the last minute and offered Bye 10 million for the mansion so that the people of Torbay can still enjoy it and have the full access to it that was agreed when the Singer family sold it to the council.

While staying at the Grand hotel while his solicitor sorted out the contracts, he heard the story about a certain Mr Roberts conning the fans of the local football club Torquay United into believing he was going to build them a new stadium.

So the new owner of Oldway has decided to build the club a brand new stadium in the grounds of Oldway and has put in for planning permission.

Below is an artists impression of what the stadium will look like.

It always makes me laugh when anyone stands up and says they feel some proposed development is not what’s needed, they get called a nimby. But the problem is that even when those so called nimbies accept something just is going to happen, the goal posts get moved again.

You take Oldway Mansions for example, while the friends of Oldway don’t really want to see the building turned into a hotel, they have accepted it is the only way the council are ever going to get the two million pounds of repairs done that are necessary. Its not just about the Mansions becoming a hotel as part of the plans included a block of flats built in the shape of a crescent on the main drive way.

So in the end the friends of Oldway give the plans their seal of approval and what happens next? Yes the company, who are getting Oldway and all its grounds for just one million pounds, have now changed the plans. Gone are the flats on the driveway and now they plan to built blocks of terraced houses all over the site. Yes on the tennis courts and parts of the gardens and its no wonder the friends of Oldway are expressing their concerns over the changes to the plans for Oldway and its gardens.


Two million pounds is all that was needed to be spent on Oldway to ensure it was there for the people of Torbay, don’t believe the hype about public access being maintained, because the public will lose much of the access they enjoy now.

We found over three million for Wreck Walk and please do not forget Rock walk was not trashed so we could have what’s there now, NO, what is there now is only because it was trashed and due to public outcry, Bye had to try and do something about the site. I will not give my views on the new Rock Walk at this time; I will go over and take a good look now that it is finished first.

The thing is do we need another hotel in Paignton? Or Torbay for that matter. We have seen some new budget hotels built in Torquay recently and one is under constructing here in Paignton. Have we suddenly become the number one tourist destination of the UK once again?

I only ask that as I thought we were losing hotel bed space due the reduction of visitors to the Bay. I can think of five large hotels that all closed and ended up empty only to be torched and then pulled down. So many holiday beds are gone and that’s not just in hotels but campsites as well, do we have any campsites left in Torbay?

So why does every planned devolvement on the table at this time have a hotel in it? You take the planned development in Torwood Street as an example. Now that was sold to the public as there was going to be something Torquay really needs right now. A brand new state of the art cinema. The public are happy with the plans and then guess what? They get changed. Gone is the cinema, the cinema company did not pull out, they were got rid off as the hotel company now want the hotel to be much bigger.

Move around to Princess Gardens and we are talking about yet another new hotel. The car park has to go to make way for it and yes it’s good the Pavilions building will get a makeover, but another hotel? Maybe that would not be so bad if was not for the fact that between the Pavilions and the Princess Theatre, they want to also have two very large tower blocks of flats. There will be no money from the developers to cover the ten million pound costs of repairing the promenade; the only parts they will repair are the bits they plan to build the tower blocks on.

Move on a bit further and we learn a budget hotel company are interested in buying the Palm Court Hotel. Well yes to that for sure as the buildings a bloody eyesore and has been for many years now, so let’s get that deal done and scrape all the other hotel plans. If they get built it just means smaller hotels going out of business, its never going to get more people here. Talking of the tower blocks of flats who is going to live in them? Not any future TUFC fans for sure. It will be second home owners and retired people and won’t do anything to help those already living here get a place to call home.

The problem is you let all these things get built they are here for ever, gone will be the open spaces all lost under concrete. It’s the same at Churston Golf Coarse. They got a very long lease at a giveaway price and now want to build houses on parts of the golf coarse. Why? Because the club is in debt and need the money to clear their debts. Sod the fact that there will be houses built on land they don’t even own and really should have no right to even dare think its OK to build on the site.

If Torbay needs new houses we have sites where they can be built without odjections.Take White Rock, the site is all cleared and the road has all been built, only the land was meant to be used for new industrial units. They have not been built as no company has shown any interest in wanting one. So now even those plans have been changed and half the land is now for houses. Seems the council believe building houses will kick start the need for the industrial units, do they live on the same planet as us?

Cheep budget hotels are not going to change the fortunes of Torbay around, nor will tower blocks of flats on the promenade, we need better attractions here, more for our visitors to see and do and yes we need to smarten the whole place up as well.

We need to make Torbay a place of welcome and not send our visitors home with a sting in their tail. We need a new mayor and we will get one soon, who does not have his head in the clouds dreaming of his visions, but one with real ideas that are achievable and worthwhile not only for the Bays visitors, but the people who live here as well.