The View From Atmos
Rob Hopkins, Environmental activist and Founder of Transition Town Totnes gives his view on the situation at Atmos, the Community Build Project at the derelict Dairy Crest Site.
On Saturday 25th January, around 50 people gathered outside the gates of the former Dairy Crest site in Totnes to mark what they called “The Fifth Anniversary of Nothing”. The event marked 5 years since Essex-based mastics company Fastglobe bought the site from previous owners Saputo (Dairy) UK, undermining the community-led Atmos plans for the site in a way described by Totnes Community Builders (TCB) as a “betrayal“.
Totnes Community Builders (formerly Totnes Community Development Society) had run an extensive community consultation which drew in more than 4000 ideas for the site from the community, which produced the final plans which were then passed by 86% of votes in 2016’s historic community referendum. Since their purchase of the site, Fastglobe has submitted two planning applications for the site, which together generated over 1,300 objections from local people. Both applications were refused by South Hams District Council, but Fastglobe then appealed these refusals and in January 2024, a Public Inquiry was held. At that Inquiry, TCB were represented as a Rule 6 party, submitting evidence that showed comprehensively that Fastglobe are not developers, have never done anything on this scale before, and that their plans for the site were completely unviable, a question, it became clear during the Inquiry, that Fastglobe had never paused to ask.
The Fifth Anniversary of Nothing heard short speeches from Ruth Ben Tovim of the Atmos for Totnes campaign, Rob Hopkins of TCB, and local resident Guy Shrubsole, author of “Lie of the Land” and Right to Roam campaigner. Those attending celebrated the news that in Frome, Mayday Saxonvale, an initiative very similar to the proposed Atmos Totnes project, had recently secured a site in the centre of Frome, after a long story of campaigning very similar to that experienced in Totnes.
To mark the Anniversary, 1854 individually hand-numbered tags were tied to the site’s gate and fencing, each one representing a particular one of “Five Wasted Years”. While mournful music played, people worked in silence to tie the tags to the fencing, a powerful visual symbol of how long the town has been denied justice and a workable solution for the future of this site. I told those attending “it is clear now, and to Fastglobe too, that the planning permission they have for this site is completely unviable. It will never be built. Those five wasted years have not moved us any closer to a solution for this site that meets this town needs”
Fastglobe are out of ideas. It’s time to return this site to the people of Totnes?
Anyone who loves Totnes will share the sense of despair that we all feel about the state of the former dairy. But while the subsequent owners of the site, whether they are called Fastglobe or Superglue, have allowed it to rot, those behind the Atmos project have also wasted a wonderful opportunity. And they have done so for ten years.
Once they had secured widespread community support for their proposals, after a consultation process that seemed to go on for ever, they were given a free pass by South Hams Council to get on with it. Why didn’t they do so ? Did they acquire the site ? Did they retain a developer to help the Atmos Project become reality ? Did they seriously attempt to raise capital.?
Sticking placards on cars, playing mournful music and lamenting what might have been is no answer to anything. In Frome, which has been much more hardheaded about implementing community change of this kind, they have sensibly acquired the site they want at Saxondale before proceeding further.
In the years since the Atmos Project was first mooted several large housing estates, including affordable homes, have been built from scratch around Totnes. And as an example of how a community interest project should be undertaken, the former Totnes Library has been turned back to a thriving cinema because of the can-do approach of Will and Jane Hughes who bought and restored the building in record time with support from dozens of local people.
It pains me to say it, but as one who dutifully took part several times in the never ending consultation process involving sticky paper and pins at the Mansion House, and supports a broad based development of the Dairy site, Atmos is now part of the problem not the solution. As Rob Hopkins says of Fastglobe, they not developers and have never done anything on this scale before. Nor has Atmos. A more business-like approach is needed urgently.