RECENT revelations about negotiations between the developers of Carlyon Bay and Cornwall Council impelled more than the usual amount of angry residents to attend a parish council meeting.

Heated residents with united opinions against plans for the biggest development Carlyon Bay has ever seen, a £250 million holiday village, attended Carlyon's parish council meeting to voice concerns to councillors.

Years of planning delays have forced Commercial Estates Group (CEG), which has worked closely with Ampersand on the project, to look at alternative options for the luxury scheme, which would go down in history as being the biggest private sector investment in Cornwall.

"Why would you want to build 500 apartments on a beach, backed by a sheer cliff and with only one access road," said Peter Price who has lived on Apple Tree Lane, Carlyon Bay, for 15 years.

Ken Stark of Sea Road, Carlyon Bay, shared Peter's view.

"You would be building on a flood plain in a coastal zone.

'Refused'

"The former Restormel Borough Council even refused planning application for the erection of road signs on the basis that it was a development within a coastal zone. These areas should not be for development," he said.

Peter said he thought beaches were one of Cornwall's assets which the county should hold on to, not develop.

Speaking after the meeting he said: "Does Cornwall want to fall into the same situation as Spain?"

He also said that with more apartments and an influx in population it would stretch the infrastructure in the area such as the road network.

As part of discussions between CEG and Cornwall council a 'planning performance agreement' was signed in June outlining the vision for development.

During the meeting, held at the committee room at Cornwall Council's One Stop Shop, on Penwinnick Road, St Austell, chairman, John Hermes, read out a drafted statement explaining the council's position.

He said: "The parish council will be registering its surprise and disagreement at the lack of transparency in the dealings of CEG and Cornwall Council.

"It would appear that negotiations between the two parties started in 2007 and a planning performance agreement was signed in June.

"During this time the parish council had set up a working party to try and put together a parish plan.

'Courtesy'

"We would have expected as the elected members representing the residents most affected by the development that we would have been extended the courtesy of knowing what was going on."

He said the parish council and other stakeholders had been invited to a meeting with the developers at the information centre in Carlyon Bay on September 29 and the views of residents would be represented at that meeting.

Should it be given the go ahead the development would turn the dilapidated Cornwall Coliseum site into a world-class resort with more than 500 "sale and lease-back" apartments. Plans for apartments, a hotel and sea wall at Crinnis, Shorthorn and Polgaver beaches were approved by the then Restormel Borough Council in 1990. But revised plans, submitted by Ampersand who acquired the site in 2002, included a larger sea wall and importing 184,000sqm of new beach material were refused by the secretary of state in 2007, after a residents campaign.