Newton Abbot: Great Storm of 1987 + Demolition opposite the bus station

Home from London on one of my regular trips to find destruction across Newton Abbot: the great tree in Courtenay Park brought down in the recent storms and a row of houses and shops being demolished opposite the bus station.

The bus station was, I am pleased to say, still in existence. It’s turn for destruction at the hands of Planners who thought they knew best was yet to come. Once home to double-deckers – red for urban and green for country routes – the station was now home to the ridiculous micro-buses you see in some of the pictures.

At this time Devon General had pretty much given up on ‘normal’ buses, favouring micro-buses that were very uncomfortable, cramped, hopeless for people with disabilities and even moderate mobility difficulties, not to mention parents with babies and small children – and extremely ugly. And, if you were daft enough to get even a moderate shop whilst in town, where would you put your bag? Thank goodness they did not last very long.

The row of shops and houses opposite the bus station was in the process of being demolished, at one time to make way for the second half of the multi-storey car park that was never actually built. Yes, Newton Abbot has half a car park! Instead the plot of land became a regular down-to-earth car park, but by 2023 is likely to be a 5-storey hotel. Marvellous.

If you look closely at the photographs in carousel view (just click on the first one to see each photo fill the screen) you will see certain things that may be of interest. For example, in one of the fallen tree you can just about make out the Vauxhall dealership right next to the railway station – now a row of rather ugly and poorly-built houses. In others you can see some of the shops at Bridge House, including a tiny Woolwich Building Society.