Councillors narrowly voted in favour of moving forward with plans to redevelop Exmouth seafront with a high quality waterfront restaurant, an 80 bedroom hotel, and an area for play and leisure uses.

East Devon District Council's cabinet on Wednesday night voted by five votes to three to launch a formal marketing exercise to identify developer/operator partners for the Queen's Drive site.

Suggested uses for the site include a new two storey café/restaurant on the existing Harbour View café site to the south of Queen's Drive, a mix of playspace (including free play) and open public space on the remainder of the site, and an 60–80 bed 3–4 star hotel of high design quality.

A marketing exercise will now take place to see if there is any commercial interest in the proposals. It will take place in two stages – the first is to market the new restaurant/café and the hotel offer, and once there is certainty of what can be delivered in terms of a hotel, the remainder of the site will be marketed for play/leisure uses.

Bids will be received and reviewed by May, and then a report is set to go the cabinet with a recommendation on preferred developer/operator in July 2020.

The temporary attractions, including the Queen's Drive Space, will continue on the site for this summer.

Alison Hayward, Project Manager, Place & Prosperity, said the Harbour View Café site offers scope to be redeveloped to provide a relaxed but good quality "sun and sandals" offering on the ground floor with decking and seating that has direct access from the beach.

A large restaurant with terraces providing a more formal dining offer, combined with stunning panoramic views, is planned for the first floor, while the Coastwatch service could then be situated at 2nd floor within a tower area designed specifically to meet their operational needs.

She said that a hotel on the site could help fund the desired public amenities and Lambert Smith Hampton have been soft market testing the proposal for holiday accommodation and it was their view that the site will appeal to a broad range of hotel operators.

She said there was no intention for a hotel to go on all of the Queen's Drive site and that once it was known is hotel was viable and how much of the site is needed, they can then market the rest of the site for leisure and play uses.

Cllr Nick Hookway though said that he had some major concerns about the report, saying the council is held in low regard by Exmouth residents where there is a deep mistrust over the proposals, made worse as Queen's Drive Group meets in private.

He added: "There is no public support for the plan and the consequences of it failing are too great to contemplate."

But Cllr Bruce de Saram backed the proposals and said: "We need to get the real time marketing information so a version of phase 3 can be delivered.

"People will have fun and we want them to come to Exmouth and have fun, so I am 100 per cent behind this report and getting the project completed within the timescale."

Cllr Kevin Blakey, portfolio holder for economy, said that no decisions about exactly what goes onto the site were being made today.

He said: "We are looking at what the options and possibilities are.

"Less than half of the site would be used for hotel use and can look at the other possibilities when we have that information, but until we know if we have any hotel operators who want to invest in the site, we don't know where to go."

Cllr Geoff Pook, portfolio holder for asset management, said that the council needed 'clarity and direction' around Queen's Drive.

He said that the study advised that a key commercial anchor was needed there and that was probably going to have to be a hotel, but the site would be around about 1/3 of the whole site, with the remainder being used for leisure.

He added: "We need clarity. We talk about there being interest, but we haven't had the hard interest in the site, so until we have that back, we don't actually know. After the first round, we will know and then can take a couple of those offers to develop further.

"If we don't get the offers that we want, it could be that the whole site could come back to marketing. The solution has to be sustainable and viable and unless there is something as an anchor tenant, we could end up with something that isn't fully utilised."

Henry Gordon Lennox, the Council Solicitor and Monitoring Officer, confirmed that any offers would come back before the cabinet before a decision to proceed with it was taken, and added: "If you are not happy with any bid, you have the right to say no if you don't like the proposals."

Cllr Geoff Jung said that the cabinet appeared to be damned whatever they chose to do as the decision to realign Queen's Drive and the car park has cost the council around £3m and they have to find a way of paying for it.

He said that they have to make a choice between doing what the residents' desire and not getting the money back, or putting a hotel there can could recoup the income and ignore the public.

Cllr Megan Armstrong added: "The council has been left with the problem for Queen's Drive as a result of poor decision making by the previous administration.

They never had a business plan. There was the unnecessary rerouting of the road. The closure of the successful businesses that were bringing substantial income to the council. Thousands of residents have not been listened to.

"There has never been any evidence to show that we need a hotel. It was something dreamt up by the last administration. Nobody in the survey I did in 2015 mentioned that they wanted a hotel. We are here for the public.

"It is easy to say we need to make money out of this but we have to careful that we are so keen to make sure there is money there, we are forgetting what the public want. Holiday accommodation could go anywhere and who is going to pay for a nice hotel when there are children playing at the front.

"We have got no evidence for any of this and no idea about what sort of money we are talking about. We should be thinking about what the community want first. They have suffered enough."

As well as recommending going ahead with the marketing exercise, the report to the cabinet said that the Leader, the Portfolio Holders for Asset Management, Finance and Economy and the Service Lead (Place, Assets and Commercialisation) and Project Manager – Place & Prosperity, should be on the selection panel for the purpose of agreeing the selection criteria for the commercial development.

It also recommended that the Queen's Drive Delivery Group continue to meet in private, but these recommendations angered councillors.

Cllr Paul Millar said: "The general public expect more openness and transparency in how phase 3 is done, but the recommendations are proof that residents not being listened to.

"The Queen's Drive meetings should not still be behind closed doors. It is wrong to compound the level of past secrecy."

Cllr Joe Whibley added: "I understand the desire to move the project forward and is a desire to get the seafront done, but that is not a reason to throw openness and transparency to the wind. There has been no discussion about how to translate the vision into actual plans."

But the cabinet overturned the recommendation and agreed that from March 1, 2020, the Queen's Drive Delivery Group should sit in public, although some items the press and public may be excluded from, and that an Exmouth councillor should be part of the panel who agree the selection criteria for the commercial development.

Cllr Ian Thomas, portfolio holder for finance, said: "There is a concern about engagement with the Exmouth community and we not only have to do the right thing but be seen to do the right thing.

It is not practical to have all the ward members for Exmouth as it would grind to halt, but if we have a representative from Exmouth to add to the group, it goes some way towards better engagement with the Exmouth community."

The cabinet voted by five votes to three, with one abstention to approve going ahead with the marketing exercise for the Queen's Drive site.

Cllrs Ben Ingham, Susie Bond, Thomas, Pook and Blakey voted for the recommendation, with Cllrs Armstrong, Jung and Jess Bailey against, and Cllr Peter Faithfull abstaining.

Stage 1 is to market the new restaurant/café opportunity and the hotel offer, and Stage 2, once there is certainty of what can be delivered in terms of a hotel, the remainder of the site will be marketed for play/leisure uses.

The Stage 1 marketing brief will make clear to prospective bidders that the hotel will only require part of the site and the majority of site will be required for a mixed play/leisure offer.

Bids will be received and reviewed by May, and then a report will go to Cabinet with recommendation on preferred developer/operator in July 2020.