At the recent Atmos Totnes public meeting those attending were asked “what would need to happen on the former Dairy Crest site in order for you to be completely delighted with it?”

Here are their responses:

  • Wildlife- fair bit of wildlife, avoid possibility of reducing this by creation of too much sterile ‘parkland’
  • No houses
  • Best eco-design
  • Music venue
  • Small local industry
  • Forum –meeting, entertainment etc…
  • Something that supports local creativity
  • Something that is modern and different and also has a rural flavour
  • Incorporating nature and the walks along the river
  • Transport hub – trains, buses, bikes (elec/hire)
  • Education and re/training particularly around sustainability
  • More trees and food crops in concourse area and integrated throughout the site
  • Put Atmos at the heart of a new Totnes wide neighbourhood plan
  • Zero waste (construction and lifetime)
  • Performing arts/music venue
  • Affordable workspace for start ups
  • Space for youth
  • Arts and (sometimes noisy) performance
  • Good doorways (not glass), strong features and ENTRANCES!
  • Lots of LOCAL art/sculpture
  • Public growing space
  • No cars
  • Bike parking
  • Electric bike charging
  • Integrated consumerism and social and cultural so a high street is more than just shopping
  • Pub with micro brewery
  • Arts centre/cinema
  • Transport hub link to station area
  • Live music venue
  • River taxi  – tidal/punts
  • Leat powered turbine
  • Cafe/restaurant area
  • Access via improved underpass
  • Park area as entry point
  • Leat powered grain mill for TTT grain project
  • Youth orientated venue and projects
  • Sport – squash/badminton
  • Direct access from river path to landscaped peaceful space
  • Built in local natural materials
  • Artisan/crafts – small units for making, displaying and selling
  • Work life combination – almost like a civic square
  • Central performance amphitheatre – free for use and play – seats above like heaths garden
  • Good wifi/bandwidth provision
  • Small entrepreneurial hub – exchange of ideas/complimentary skills – incubating innovation in small businesses and of course sustainable
  • Designer/maker studios and retail space
  • Place for youth to go to enjoy themselves and not upset people
  • Vibrant cultural artistic hub – music, dance, rehearsal and recording
  • Beautiful art and sculpture, a stunning gateway to Totnes that links to the town
  • A model that offers a new, locally rooted solution to re-vitalising local communities
  • 100 high quality jobs e.g. technology, science – opportunities so our children want to stay
  • Affordability: housing, live-work units (the architect’s sketches look rather up market)
  • Internal air quality (ventilation, environmental health)
  • Multi generational – diverse age and background
  • A working example of integrated transport – including links to the centre of Totnes – walkways, cycleways, buses.
  • Mixed economy, live-work space,
  • Community control for ever (ownership?)
  • Generate energy for the wider community
  • Weather protected space
  • Needs stronger links into the station and planned as part of an improvement to the station
  • Pedestrian and public transport led (not car dominated)
  • Public art
  • Arts/creative focused on young people
  • Traditional crafts, community pottery etc…- teaching, visitors, resident craftsmen. Preserve tradiotional crafts (even restore dead ones
  • Connection with South Devon Steam Railway and Rare Breeds Farm
  • Auditorium – 250-300 seat fully equipped theatre films, plays, dance.
  • Cottage industry – making local things
  • Facilities for young people chosen by them
  • Interpretation centre in Brunel building
  • Shared food processing premises – value added rather than retail
  • TRULY local materials for showcasing an eco, zero carbon building – construction of which could be a course – by Schumacher!
  • Carbon positive – integration of food production and use in cafes
  • Jobs and homes
  • Evening and weekend activity e.g. live music, entertaining, social
  • For Brunel building consider CHP plant that links into history of Brunel
  • Develop the relationship with the River Dart alongside
  • Growing food and water everywhere
  • Transport hub and bio fuel
  • Through access to the river and weir
  • A good free youth club with river based activities
  • Community garden – organic!
  • Managing flood risk – resilience
  • Technical and engineering work space with equipment. Classrooms. Inter generational skill sharing and apprenticeships
  • Community Land Trust
  • Integrate/informed by Passivhaus and building physics/design, M and E (heating and hot water and OV/ventilation – central systems, input of expert
  • Innovation, products and design
  • Transport hub
  • Innovative in-building energy design
  • Plants and eco systems as sewage and contaminant treatment
  • Making use of the river, providing access to the river
  • Fire pit in stone circle (Milton Keynes for example)
  • Real live version of energy descent action plan – lead the way on real planning
  • Arts centre with a focus on telling new stories to live by. Wellbeing, participation, an internationally pioneering community arts spac
  • Living roofs and walls – plants everywhere
  • A tree house
  • Pedal operated fountain
  • Music venue
  • Affordable flats
  • Lots of public art
  • Oil processing for diesel vehicles, recycled veg oil
  • Small business support
  • Low impact, low cost self build housing
  • Electric bikes, charging points like the Paris Velib
  • Transport hub and kickstart freight back to rail
  • Top quality community exhibition space
  • Community kitchen – flexible cooking and eating space
  • Renewable energy in practice
  • A site which has been designed creatively with public art strand running throughout
  • Super sustainable buildings made from local natural materials
  • AFFORDABLE live-work space
  • Road/rail and river transport integration
  • Well paid and interesting, creative jobs
  • Community arts facility, good acoustics
  • Bunk house, CHEAP youth hostel
  • Brunel heritage explained
  • Business opportunities
  • Self grow space, allotment area, beehives!
  • History of the Brunel building
  • Brunel Heritage Museum, carbon positive rather than carbon neutral
  • Develop site to include River Dart business opportunities
  • Food growing (e.g. Todmorden)
  • Possible concept like the Flavel in Dartmouth – library, theatre, cinema, restaurant
  • Heritage aspect, apply the name Brunel
  • Ferry connection
  • Community space
  • Thriving local business
  • Theatre/dance
  • Off grid
  • Community ownership
  • Courses for reusing old clothes – workshop
  • Market for workshop
  • Complementary to the existing high street businesses
  • Experiment with different ways of living
  • Low impact self build housing
  • A community oriented recycling yard to replace the one we are about to lose
  • Totnes recycling centre
  • Biomass generator
  • Place for young people
  • Concert/exhibition space
  • Links with industrial past
  • Food growing space, food processing hub, retail support/opportunities
  • DIY/self build live-work and artisan units
  • Craft workshops should have private space to work and public space to sell from
  • Permanent display space for locally made products, arts and crafts
  • Affordable work/shop space for artists and craftspeople, secure tenancy, not just small units, not just incubator but long term
  • I want what Dartington was supposed to be – for the artists and residents of Totnes
  • Community Centre/Arts Centre. Theatre like Dartmouth
  • Station incorporating Brunel (theatre, cinema at one end) Riverside cafe/bar at the other end
  • Station integrated
  • Combining idealism with practicality. Ensure that our plans are integrated with the railways – all trains stop at Totnes – The Top Destinatio
  • Conference facility that is affordable
  • Complement what is in the town already – don’t damage the existing businesses
  • Artisan/crafts small units for making, displaying and selling
  • Cafe
  • Small local retail spaces
  • Superb accessibility for less abled
  • Cycle path – a beautiful cycle route through the Atmos site
  • Training opportunities for the young
  • Sustainable site promising TTT principles
  • Keep traditional look of the area in building design
  • All aspects of community served, from arts to business and all in between
  • Brewery and theatre
  • Local USE at the heart of the project
  • A truly LOCAL cafe at the heart of it: what local food should really look like
  • Inspire other communities to do the same
  • Design something that is more ‘Totnes’ – this can still be contemporary but fits in local vernacular
  • A space that young people can make their own – a large room plus garden
  • Rope in Price Charles (if you think it’ll help!)
  • Definitely include the river, open it up to people
  • ‘Affordable’ community centre for performing arts and for use by the community
  • Example of cutting edge renewable energy
  • All planting edible or useful
  • High spec academic research unit (Totnes think tank) well funded with well paid job for me
  • Arrival: bus terminus, bike hire, water transport – Transport Hub ‘Totnes on the Move’
  • Catalyst for other economic development in Totnes
  • Sustainable/zero carbon
  • Play equipment/loose play/toys, sand and diggers
  • Natural building materials demonstrated
  • Loads of plants, flowing water, trees, green walls
  • Zero carbon/renewable energy
  • Soft boundary to the river
  • Community brewery!
  • Great design generates great ideas
  • Cycling or bicycle focused industry including: carbon neutral electric cycle transport industry/hub
  • Courtyards with pillars like the butterwalk – sheltered/shady areas – HUMAN SCALE
  • Low cost youth hostel/backpacker type accommodation
  • Real, useful things being made/created
  • REALLY affordable housing
  • Foraging food garden
  • Accessibility – river/path link
  • Communal garage space for residents (car sharing and electric cars)
  • Small live-work units based on viable business plans
  • Communal workspace/hot desks
  • Emphasis on product and not online
  • Look interesting and a point of arrival for the town
  • Piazza, open space – landscaped
  • Community meeting space – complementary to the market square (a place to hang out)
  • Community feel
  • Access through to river walk
  • Incubator for young people/apprenticeships/creative/small
  • Place for innovative technology (CAT model)
  • Training/research/conference meeting point for the South West
  • Water taxi
  • Water energy generation scheme (Archimedes Screw)