In this final article before the start of what is officially termed 'purdah', I will focus on Queen's Drive, which as readers will be aware is within Littleham.

My concern is not the fact that more consultation has taken place recently, because I see this as the opportunity for residents to get closure for this project.

When the last administration left office in 2019 of which as a Conservative I was a part, we left the Sideshore complex with the Mickey's building ready for future use.

We delivered what was then loosely termed 'phase one'. As we end this council term, when I look back and see what has actually been delivered, unfortunately I do not see anything worth commenting on because all we have is a bike rack, signage (still to be put in place), a fitness area and an events area.

If we look more closely at for example the fitness area which was installed during the pandemic because of the social distancing measures, we find that there has not been a great deal of demand for this dedicated space.

The issue I have is that its usage has not been as expected. Although I note the weather played its part, as the space has been adversely affected by last year's heatwave, and the resulting impact on growing conditions for the grass surface.

It was planned to run fitness sessions for teenagers over the summer season. This did not happen and in my opinion, the council has wasted resources on this unused area of open space.

Several councillors would like to have seen it used as an extension of the nearby dinosaur park, so that children of all ages could make use of it.

There was no real thinking about this space, simply a desire on the part of some members to stop it at any cost from becoming a permanent car park, as it had previously been a temporary overflow space.

Likewise if we consider the events space, a similar story emerges, as was reported back to the Placemaking in Exmouth Town and Seafront Group last week. The minutes indicate that "there has been little interest in the Events Space at Queen's Drive despite extensive marketing to attract a reliable operator for the whole season or for the summer holidays".

I think, readers, that this is really disappointing, as clearly this situation cannot continue indefinitely year on year for the good of our residents.

As to the next steps, well the council has now allocated a budget for placemaking consultancy work which is just under £150k, within an wider budget of £160k to allow for any unforeseen expenditure.

The purpose of this is to get to an aligned position where the placemaking group and the aims of the council coalesce to become common goals, where previously there was not an agreed position.

This cannot be good news, because as Cllr Armstrong, an independent councillor, noted at the meeting some of the previous content around this project is still relevant, and she quite correctly pointed out that members of the public had contributed to it.

To me, readers, this implies that the council is simply going to ignore the public and do whatever is recommended by the consultants which takes us back to where we were in 2019 and no further forward.

As I have openly said at many meetings, I would like to see something done with this space which brings both leisure to the residents and our many visitors, whilst at the same time delivering the financial benefits to the council, who ultimately are responsible for delivering value for money to their residents which we should never forget.

In conclusion, I very much hope that the next council moves this project on at a very rapid pace so that the various infrastructure projects are actually delivered for Exmouth and of course Exmouth Littleham itself where I have been privileged to be one of your three ward councillors.

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