All over England there are developments and planning applications that seem to defy the protections and laws of the land. These schemes don’t just happen overnight- they are years in the making and often require long-term thinking from the structuring to the methodology.
This is the story of one of them. A hotel in a small village on the south coast of Cornwall has revealed its two-phase plan to build and sell 25 houses in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, overlooking a Special Area of Conservation and within spitting distance from a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Phase 1 has already begun.
So even if the word Meudon means nothing to you, nor Mawnan Smith, don’t turn away. This is a story being played out in communities across the UK and it affects everyone. At a time where protection must come before profit, it is crucial we are able to depend on our environmental protections and planning laws to not be manipulated and side stepped.
When it was advertised in 2020 the Meudon Hotel, last on the market in 1964, was a sale of two halves; the hotel and it’s grounds priced at £2.5m, and the more isolated Bream House and it’s 10 acre Bream Field priced at £1m. The entire 18 acres is situated within the very desirable small village of Mawnan Smith and overlooks Falmouth Bay.
It was bought by hotel operators Kingfisher Resorts and within weeks of the £3.5m sale going through an investment deck by Kingfisher, created to attract potential shareholders for the ‘Meudon venture’, somehow found its way into the Mawnan community. It details a 6 year plan to build 25 houses in two phases, throughout the hotel estate and Bream field, to be sold off plan to the highest bidders and rented back to the hotel as accommodation (see my first post here). It has created uproar within the community but despite the investment deck referring to the field as ‘well suited for development of luxury villas’, Kingfisher denies it has any development plans for it.
However, true to the investment document, phase 1 has begun. Meudon Vean Ltd submitted a planning application in late 2021, to modernise and develop the hotel site ‘to suit the new trend in experiential travel’, which translates to 10 C3 class (residential) houses dotted through the hotel’s wooded valley down to the semi privately owned beach at the bottom.
Nearly 100 documents were submitted by planning consultancy Black Box on behalf of Kingfisher in November 2021. Then came another 10 documents in December. Without any co-ordinated local campaign the application received over 150 objections; a huge turnout for a small community of just 600 households who took the time to grapple with the complexity of the documents to understand exactly what is being proposed. Then came another 43 documents in February and March. Then another 14 in June.
In normal circumstances, because of the location and protections across the area, the application wouldn’t make it past the desk. However, make something part of a tourism operation and suddenly things become possible in highly protected areas; the economics of it can win out. The downside to the job creation that can tip the scales in favour of applications is that it’s not so great for the environment, community or already crippled infrastructure in the long term. The jobs, of course, are also mostly low-paid and seasonal.
The AONB strongly object, in two long letters sent in January and April this year, to the entire application because it is major development in a place that is specifically designated to not to be developed. The National Trust have also waded in with concerns.
Despite this, and a decision being promised in March, Cornwall Council allowed Kingfisher to return to the Parish Council in July with some changes it had made to the application in an attempt to push it through- a privilege not reserved for normal folk. The changes do not respond to any points raised by the community or the AONB. The Parish Council once again objected to the scheme.
There is still no decision as of the beginning of September. The documents now number 181.
The war of attrition has started; the period of the initial anger has subsided and people have lives they need to keep up with. How long can enough of them keep reading documents, writing responses and attending meetings to have an impact on the outcome?
My interest lies in the one document not submitted to Cornwall Council; the Proof of Title. There is currently no clear ownership documentation submitted by Kingfisher for the hotel, Bream House or the field. It is relevant because one of the greatest points of contentions in the current planning application is the ‘development boundary’; a thin red line drawn around the Meudon site and neighbouring Bream field.
Development boundaries are pretty boring things to talk about really. It’s a term used in planning to define an ‘application site’; that is, the area an applicant intends to develop or change. These boundaries, defined by a red line, often become incredibly important in larger proposals because they essentially set a development area that will be there for evermore. Developers often throw them as wide as possible around a site, even if the development proposed at that time is only on a small portion of the area. Once set, it paves the way for easy expansion later in the future.
Bream Field, overlooking Falmouth Bay, has been included within the red development boundary of the hotel site; the justification being it’s going to be developed into a ‘biodiversity reserve’.
Yet on paper, Bream Field does not reside where the hotel is- not in title deed nor company. It is not part of the hotel estate and was bought in a separate transaction from the hotel and the field. It is actually ‘owned’ (see appendix 1,2) by the parent company that owns Meudon Vean Ltd- not the hotel business itself.
In February 2021 Bream field was registered for the first time, along with a new vehicular access track from a private road 1 mile down from the hotel entrance. At the same time the Hotel and Bream House sale completed, the field was ‘transferred’ to the new parent company ‘Kingfisher Resorts Meudon’- bypassing the hotel company- the tourism operation- all together (see appendix 3,4).
It’s a small but very relevant detail on two levels: one because planning guidance states that if the applicant owns land next to or close to the application site it should be outlined in blue- not part of the red lined development site and two; because of the aforementioned ability for tourism operations to develop in highly protected areas.
The field included in this development boundary is not owned by the applicant yet on the submitted masterplan part of the area covered by the title deed for the field is outlined in red which gives it the appearance that it’s the same title deed as the hotel- yet a small section of it- the access onto the private road- is outlined in blue. So the applicant seems to have divided a title deed up between red and blue boundaries with no declaration of the ownership differences.
There is, of course, no issue with applying for planning permission on land you don’t own, but the application form and planning statement explicitly state that Meudon Vean Ltd is the owner of the ‘application site’ which would make the field part of the tourism establishment which enables it to be brought into the development boundary of the hotel. Without proof of title, it is impossible for the council to know that this isn’t the case. It’s a small thing but huge in its meaning and consequence because it could, in theory, pave the road for phase two; fifteen houses across the field, to go ahead on land owned by a separate company, in one title deed with its own separate access onto what is already an exclusive private road.
Up until now, frustratingly for the Parish Council and the community, Kingfisher will not move the red line- arguing they would have to resubmit the entire application because it’s a major change. It’s not something they want to do; in the interim the local Neighbourhood Development Plan has been voted into law and could all but guarantee phase 1 of the development not to go ahead.
Will the missing proof of title, revealing ownership spread across two title deeds belonging to two companies, force a resubmission of the application with blue and red lines drawn in accordance with planning guidance? The decision lies in the hands of Cornwall Council and it’s planning department- tasked to act in the public interest and uphold planning regulation and the environmental laws that are supposedly enshrined within.
In the meantime, a community waits with baited breath to find out the fate of its much loved wild and rugged field with the coastal path running through it. A field that despite all the protections shielding it, could discover that it’s one vulnerability is that it lies next door to a hotel.
Appendix
1. Accounts for the new formed parent company ‘Kingfisher Resorts Meudon’ confirms the purchase of ‘Meudon Vean Ltd’; the original company formed in the 60s which owns the hotel, as an investment of £3.5 million.
2. KRM’s accounts record a tangible asset called ‘Freehold Land and Buildings’ valued at £70,000. Being a ‘tangible asset’ in a parent company it is separate from the ‘Investment’ in the company; the hotel and its operations.
3. In February 2021 the then-owners of the hotel registered their personal ownership of Bream field along with a new vehicular access track from a private road 1 mile down from the hotel entrance with an assigned value of £70,000. The title deed for the field does not include Bream House, even though the field and house were going to be marketed as one property in a few months time.
4. Despite the sale of the hotel and Bream House ‘Meudon Vean Ltd’ to Kingfisher completing on 21st December, the title deeds at the Land Registry for Bream field and its access still belong to the previous owners.
5. The Proof of Title is referenced in the Draft 106 Heads of Terms as Appendix 1 but not included.
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