RECENT HISTORY OF THE BAGOT STREET PARK VISTA

2009 - The Town of Essex releases it’s 2009 Official Plan with grandiose ideas about improving and expanding the Hamlet of Colchester to include ‘old English Tudor themes in keeping with the historical character of the Hamlet’ with ‘gables and dormers and use materials characteristic of the area, including clapboard siding, stone and old brick, wood and wooden windows’.  They also promoted ‘views and vistas that should be preserved, protected and enhanced’. One vista was a lovely little parkette at the end of Bagot Street with a great view of the lake and harbour.

2009 to 2024 – The Town of Essex appears to make no effort to preserve, protect or enhance the Bagot St. Park vista.

OCTOBER 21, ’24 – At the Town of Essex council meeting, the Town directed the Planning Department to stop the approval process for the proposed 2024 Official Plan in order to reconsider the Official Plans fundamentals and ensure that various new comprehensive studies are factored in. 

OCTOBER 28 – 30, ’24 – The Town of Essex hires a tree service contractor to clear out most of the trees, bushes and other vegetation growing on the side of the Bagot Street parkette escarpment right down to the lake level.  At least 30 trees and 30 bushes are cut down to the ground and hauled away.  Almost everything green is destroyed and what’s left are dead roots and loose topsoil with very little left to protect the cliff from certain erosion.  This ‘vista’, part of the 2009 Official Plan, is apparently totally forgotten by the Town for 15 years and then suddenly becomes a priority. The lovely view has been returned but the cliff is now at risk. Can we ask ‘Why now?’

SEE PHOTOS AND CURRENTLY IN FORCE 2009 OFFICIAL PLAN BELOW