Storm damage roof inspection in Paignton

Paignton sits on the flat middle of Tor Bay, with a long sandy beach and level ground behind it rising only gently towards Marldon and Collaton St Mary. That flatness means an easterly gale, which the bay does nothing to soften, reaches every property along the front with equal force and nothing behind them to slow it further inland.

Where Paignton differs most from its Torbay neighbours is ownership. The town has an unusually large stock of holiday flats and guest houses, many run seasonally or managed remotely, and a slipped tile or a torn section of felt after a storm can go unreported for weeks simply because nobody with reason to look is on site.

Paignton Zoo, set back from the seafront on higher ground, runs a large estate of animal housing and outbuildings that takes a related but calmer version of the front-line weather, a reminder that a single storm across this town produces very different outcomes depending on how close to the beach a given roof actually sits.

The Edwardian and inter-war seaside terraces and semis carry concrete interlocking tile in the main, with older natural slate stock mixed in, and storm failures follow the familiar pattern of ridge and verge loosening under wind loading. Guest house extensions, often flat-roofed additions built to add letting rooms, are a specific weak point, with felt or clay pantile sections that were never as robust as the main house roof to begin with.

Because salt reaches several streets back from the front on the flat ground, fixings inland are worked harder here than the distance from the sea would suggest, which surprises owners who assume the properties nearer Marldon are relatively sheltered.

For a managing agent responsible for a run of holiday lets, a flown survey after a named storm can cover several addresses in one visit, producing a dated record for each even where no guest or caretaker happened to notice anything wrong at the time.

That matters for a claim raised weeks after the event: without a prompt, independent record, an insurer has only the owner's account of when the damage happened, and a property that sits empty between bookings is exactly the case where that account is weakest.

Oldway Mansion and the streets around it sit further back from the seafront than most of the guest house stock this page has focused on, in the same TQ3 to TQ4 postcode area, and a claim covering a run of holiday lets near Goodrington Sands is flown in the same visit as one nearer the pier. Totnes, inland along the Dart valley, is a distinctly quieter address to book.