Fancy buying Living Coasts?

Site for sale, if you're serious

A property agent is inviting proposals for the former Living Coasts attraction on Torquay seafront.

Bettesworths says serious potential occupiers for the site of the closed marine wildlife attraction should get in touch with plans for uses or development by Friday 16 July.

It is advertising the property as world class location with an outdoor landscaped area of 4,600sq m (50,000sq ft) and a substantial restaurant “with unrivalled panoramic sea views”.

The agent says the site has “scope for an enormous range of possible uses”. It is asking for expressions of interest from “viable parties” rather than ideas from the general public.

The Wild Planet Trust, which runs Paignton Zoo and Newquay Zoo, announced in June 2020 that Living Coasts attraction would not reopen after the pandemic, with the loss of 44 jobs.

It opened in 2003 on a theme of seabirds and coastal wildlife under a giant net, with attractions including a flock of penguins. The trust had a 125-year lease from Torbay Council for the site, on an outcrop between the harbour and Beacon Cove.

The south-facing beach known during the Victorian era as the Ladies’ Bathing Cove is said to have been a favourite childhood haunt of Torquay-born thriller writer Agatha Christie.

A brochure for the site says: “Proposals will only be considered when presented in conjunction with evidence of substantial and sufficient due diligence as to viability and also with proof of access to sustainable funding with which to deliver such uses.

“Our clients respectfully request for it to be made clear that this is not an invitation for suggestions or wishes from members of the general public.

“Bettesworths’ client, The Wild Planet Trust, reserve the right to treat with or decline to treat with any interested party at their own behest.

“Serious proposals made on a subject to planning basis will be considered.”

A statement from the council in 2020 said it would prefer to see the Living Coasts site continue as a wildlife centre but it had received a number of proposals for the land, including redevelopment.

Torbay’s former elected mayor Gordon Oliver has called for a landscaped public open space on the headland, which has a long history of use for leisure and entertainment.

The opening of the Living Coasts marine wildlife attraction in July 2003 was the latest in a series of uses for the site. More than a century earlier, the Torquay Marine Spa was built on the outcrop in 1857, as Torquay expanded rapidly as a holiday destination.

The Victorian entertainment complex overlooking Beacon Cove included a ballroom, concert hall, private bathing facilities and a sunlit conservatory. A large public swimming pool also open to the sea below.

The pool remained in use until the 1971 when a child died after being trapped in an underwater drainage pipe. The complex was redeveloped into Coral Island in the 1970s, but fell out of favour and was derelict by the end of the 1980s. It was demolished to make way for the sealife aviary of Living Coasts.