Brightlingsea Town Council (BTC) is anxiously awaiting a decision on whether or not it has to repay the £75,000 grant given to build its ‘Heritage Pier’ jetty on the town hard.
The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) said the floating jetty – completed in 2021 – is “not fit for purpose” and has given the council until March 28 to submit reasons stating why it should not have to hand the grant back.
The council has put a provision in its end of year accounts “regarding the possible return of grant funding relating to the Heritage Pier”. It’s believed that the council has sufficient reserves – which at the end of February stood at just under £148,000 – to cover the repayment.
BTC has also suggested that “possible action” could be taken to recover funds from “relevant organisations”. Brightlingsea Info understands that this relates to a £1,140 report commissioned – and subsequently rejected – by the council from consultants Exo Environmental.
The report was supposed to have been submitted to the MMO to put the case for retaining the grant but, at last week’s full council meeting, councillor Jayne Chapman said it “could have got us into a lot of trouble” had it been sent.
It’s understood that the report repeated some of the claims made on the original grant application. On that, BTC said that the jetty would support around two dozen of the town’s coded, or licensed, fishermen, as well as several jobs while covid restrictions were in place.
However, at last week’s meeting, it was revealed that the MMO – having been alerted by harbour users to the fact that there are at best only one or two coded fishermen working out of Brightlingsea and no dependent jobs – believes the jetty does not meet the criteria for which the grant was given.
The original plan would have seen the jetty to extend to low water mark – but the Land Registry has ruled that the council does not own the land required to do this. This leaves the jetty – completed with £25,000 of BTC funding – practically useless for landing fish, as boats would only be able to come alongside at high water.
Without the extension, which might have cost another £30-40,000, the jetty can’t be accessed by ‘heritage vessels’ such as Thames barges – another use which was originally suggested.
Following the MMO’s queries, BTC set up a scrutiny panel late last year – consisting of councillors Chris Paveley, Dave Atkinson and Mick Barry – to examine alternative uses for the jetty and find mitigations that might keep the MMO from demanding repayment. The panel sought information from Brightlingsea Harbour Commissioners, the Kent and Essex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority and other parties that might have an interest.
Before last week’s council meeting, the panel had an online meeting with senior members of the MMO. In full council, Cllr Atkinson said the organisation was “fair, reasonable and sympathetic” but hadn’t changed its view that the jetty was not doing the job for which the grant was given.
One mitigation the panel put forward was that – partly because of unforeseen construction issues – the jetty was not able to be completed until after covid restrictions were lifted. The panel has also suggested alternative uses – as yet not made public –for the jetty.
Following the panel’s report to full council, town mayor John Carr and councillor Ric Morgan are to compile the final response to the MMO.
