Burnham-On-Sea town councillors are set to create new policy to help developers with the selection of names for new local roads, streets and housing developments after a discussion regarding the choice of name for a new block of flats in the town centre.
At a meeting of the Town Council’s planning applications committee on Wednesday (January 12th), councillors noted local discussion over the name of a new development of 39 flats in Victoria Street, pictured above, in place of the old Tuckers Garage. The developers have decided to call it ‘Mulberry Court’ with no reference to Tuckers Garage.
Deputy Town Council Clerk Lorna Williams told Wednesday’s meeting: “I think we need to discuss in the future the possible naming of new streets and and roads. Councillor Phil Harvey contacted Sedgemoor District Council when he heard that the Tuckers Garage development is going to be called Mulberry Court.”
“He questioned with Sedgemoor the process of naming streets and the response back was that there’s no mechanism in place at present. If the Town Council so wishes, at the time of an application, we could suggest new road names.”
She adds: “I think the best route is to actually write up a new policy on the stance that this Town Council could make. We might want to contact developers at the time of the application coming in, if this council wishes.”
“We have looked at a couple of developments in the past where street names have been involved – once was the Morland Estate, and another was for the roads behind the Highbridge Hotel where the streets contain the names Tyler and Duckett.”
Cllr Louise Parkin noted that the Mulberry name had probably been chosen for the new Victoria Street development because of Burnham’s historical Mulberry blocks that lie on the town’s beach near the low lighthouse.
Cllr Andy Brewer added: “When we’ve had an input on names, it’s been at the invitation of the planning authority who’ve been liaising with the developer. It’s not always easy for us to engage with the developer at any early stage – it is not always straightforward, however if we do have a policy included with our planning policy documents then that’s going to make it easier. It can often be difficult to try and engage with a developer if we’ve objected quite strongly to a development! It is not always straightforward but in the past we have had an input based on an invitation from the planning authority.”
He added that “from a local history point-of-view, it would be interesting to have a record of why names have been chosen for road names in Burnham and Highbridge.”
