More excellent Whitby Harbour maintenance and health and safety from SBC

A broken timber baulk tied to the fuel berth.

The fuel berth is heavily used and probably one of the areas of the harbour where fishermen and sailors are at most risk but judging by these photos is subject to the same degree of SBC neglect as the rest of Whitby Harbour.

This is supposed to stop boats drifting under the fuel berth.

Rotten timber...broken...neglect...SBC.

Pics © Ken Graham.

Stakesby fire

Ken Graham writes:

A huge haystack fire damages a Stakesby farm.
Flames and crackling from the fire could be heard and seen from all round Whitby as a smoke column rose hundreds of feet into the sky. It is the second time this has happened in a short space of time. Eye witnesses saw 2 horses being rescued but it is has being suggested that there was several horses kept at the farm that may not have escaped. The blaze, which was in a residential area, took several hours to bring under control.

(And reader photos please email to thewhitbyindepenedent@googlemail.com, a pic credit and link to any photostream will be given)

Old St Stephens calling all bards and minstrels.

Old St Stephens, Robin Hoods Bay.

Following the success of the last poetry day, St Stephen’s old church in Robin Hoods Bay will be holding an ‘open pulpit’ music, poetry and storytelling afternoon on Saturday 26 September starting at 2pm.

Organizer Deb Gillanders says all are welcome, whether to watch and listen or to mount the pulpit steps to sing, recite poetry or spin a tale. The church has no electricity, so performers have to get into the pulpit and project.

Deb says it’s easy to get over ‘pulpit fright’ as you’re standing 6 feet above the audience ‘and the acoustics are great’.

Poll results

Should SBC Independent Councillors go into coalition with the Conservative group?

Yes 13%
No 87%

Arrangements for the future government of Scarborough Borough

from the last full SBC meeting:

The Council agree to a ‘rainbow coalition’ to which all
groups/affiliations are invited to form the administration of the
Council with the membership of its Cabinet based on ‘proportional
representation’. That the Council also agree the principle, that during these
administrative arrangements, to use proportional representation as a
guide in the selection of the chairs and vice chairs for the eleven
formal committees (4 x Area Committees, 4 x O/S, Planning and
Development and Audit Committee) of the Council and that through the
Group Leaders and Deputy Group Leaders of each respective Group or
Affiliation work is carried out to enable recommendations to be made to
a meeting of this Council on the 7th October to include the following:-

● Description of the Cabinet Portfolios
● Names of Councillors to the respective Portfolios
● Names for Chairs/Vice Chairs of each of the relevant Committees
● Membership of each of the relevant committees of the Council
● Any changes to the Constitution of the Council that may be
required to permit Cabinet and portfolio holders to exercise their
functions.

See the International Space Station

pass overhead tonight around 9pm, details of the ground track and times here. Look in a South Westerly direction. Whitby has been seen on film by the ISS crew. Thanks to Dr Karen James for the twitter alert.

Chef in search of local produce.

Award-winning chef Rob Green, of Green’s of Whitby has a great classified ad looking for local produce.

Staithes, sewage, Scarborough and signage.

According to SBC, the BBC Panorama programme on sewage contaminated beaches which reported on Staithes

Staithes harbour: don't swim if you value your health.

only partially quoted the response by Scarborough Borough Council’s Tourism Manager. The statement in full is this:

“We do not submit Staithes for any of the beach management awards and we are not legally obliged to provide signage about the water quality.

“However, Scarborough Borough Council does manage 44 miles of coastline and has two Blue Flag and six Quality Coast Award beaches. We promote these beaches and provide the necessary signage and notices to comply with the awards. We display the results at the awarded beaches only because it is part of the Blue Flag Award criteria.”

SBC also said: “Yorkshire Water have confirmed that it is the Environment Agency’s remit to comment on the quality of the bathing water not the local authority’s responsibility.”

Everybody is trying to shift responsibility onto everybody else, but the fact remains that if you swim in Staithes Harbour you run a substantial risk of contracting gastroenteritis and no one in any public office sees fit to warn the public of this.

SBC has ‘no plans to reinstate bridge to East Pier extension.

Stormy times ahead over East Pier

SBC recently confirmed that, depite being responsible for its maintenance for the last 35 years, it has no plans to re-link the East Pier extention to the East Pier as ‘funds would have to be indentified’.

SBC’s neglect left the old bridge in such a state that it was unsafe and had to be removed, and in the absence of public access the east extension’s deterioration has continued to the point where the landward end hangs over a hole in the seabed and a report identified the need to repair the structure as ‘urgent’.

TWI is investigating SBC’s responsibilities in this area, because at some point it will have to hand the port of Whitby over to its new managing board: SBC should have divested itself of control of Whitby harbour years ago but deliberately stalled, many think due to the income from car parking fees. The port area includes the piers and SBC have an obligation to hand the part over in the state in which it inherited it: which includes an East Pier in good repair and open to the public. There are moves afoot (not by Whitby Town Council, obviously) to see whether the town of Whitby could take legal action against SBC for its neglect of our harbour infrastructure.

Staithes ‘the worst beach in England’ for pollution.

Staithes: the water's brown for a nasty reason.

According to BBC Panorama yesterday, which is available to watch on BBC iPlayer for another six days.

Staithes, which remains a registered bathing beach, has failed water quality tests for 17 of the last 21 times it was tested. When Panorama told SBC that they had a beach in this state and that there should signs warning people that the water is potentially harmful, and SBC spokesman claimed that they did not know this was the case.

Who at SBC does not know their job, or has wilfully ignored the data showing that Staithes Beck pollutes Staithes Harbour beyond the limits for safe bathing and refused to warn the public of the risks they face when swimming at Staithes? That person has just exposed Scarborough Borough Council as being incompetent on national television. TWI assumes that disciplinary action will follow for this public, prime time humiliation for Scarborough Borough Council.

Whitby Town Council extraordinary meeting

this evening.

Of course, there is no agenda on the Council’s embarrasingly bad and out of date website, so unless you happen to know a Councillor or are in a circle of people privileged to be informed, you will struggle to find out what the Councillors will be talking about.

TWI understands that it is to consider:
• The future of housing at Cook’s World (AKA the Engine Shed).
• Public access to Whitby Town Council office.

Scarborough Borough Councillors carving up power today.

Spies from Scarborough tell TWI that the leaders and deputy leaders of the ‘Rainbow Coalition’ are today meeting to carve up the cabinet seats.

Rumour has it that the Conservatives have been agitating for a tenth cabinet portfolio, this new portfolio to be awarded to the Conservatives so that they have five cabinet portfolio votes against five Independent/LibDem/Green votes.

As TWI reported…

two days ago it’s a ‘rainbow coalition’ for Scarborough Borough Council. The word is that the deal has been done. The Conservatives will have 4 cabinet seats, the ‘Independents’ 3, the Liberal Democrats 1 and the Greens 1. The two non-aligned Independents and two Labour Party councillors now form the opposition.

Grand Turk damaged in collision.

Grand Turk entering Whitby Harbour November 2007

Whitby’s semi-permanent tall ship resident the Grand Turk has been damaged in a collision in Great Yarmouth. Watch video of the collision here.


Turk was t-boned by the gaff ketch Excelsior which is operated by the Cirdan Sailing Trust.

The collision snapped Excelsior’s bowsprit and and brought its topmast crashing down. Grand Turk is in Great Yarmouth to take part in a maritime festival and to be drydocked for her Maritime and Coastguard Agency safety inspection.

TWI is calling to find out the extent of the damage. H/t Ken Graham.

Sewage on beaches: BBC Panorama tonight.

Yorkshire Water discharges mixed sewage and storm water into Whitby Harbour ‘at times of high rainfall’. This, along with the uncontrolled pollution from Bagdale Beck results in levels of harmful bacteria that regularly exceed EU bathing regulations.

Panorama investigates the problem of Britain’s sewage-contaminated beaches tonight on BBC1 8.30.

The programme states that where sewage does spill onto beaches, swimmers have a 1 in 20 chance of contracting gastroenteritis.

Exclusive: Conservatives and Independents form IndyCon SBC coalition. (Updated)

Scarborough Borough Council’s minority Conservative group have clung onto power by entering a powersharing coalition with the Independent group.

The Conservatives’ grip on the cabinet was weakened in the wake of Independent Sandra Turner winning the Streohshalh byelection in Whitby and a Green taking a former Conservative Scarborough seat in another SBC byelection. It was expected that the Conservative group led by Councillor Tom Fox would be replaced by a rainbow coalition of Independents, Greens and Liberal Democrats.

However, on Saturday evening a reliable source told TWI to expect the coalition announcement on Monday. This will be a coalition between the two largest groups on Scarborough Borough Council and will do little to dispel the widely-held view that many Independent councillors hold strong Conservative sympathies.

TWI will be contacting both of Whitby’s Independent Councillors to ask for their comments on the IndyCon (© TWI) coalition. TWI readers can register their opinion on the Independents’ actions with our poll in the right sidebar.

Related posts: Conservatives on the edge of losing power.
Fox hunting after Scarborough changes political spots.

Edit: sources are now saying that Lib Dems and Greens are joining the coalition and that the Conservatives will not be in the majority, but will hold more cabinet seats than any of the other parties involved in the deal. Horse trading appears to have been continuing iover the weekend with decisions to be finalized tomorrow. The Labour Party councillors have declined to join any coalition.

Another TWI exclusive coming right up…

TWI is just making some phone calls.

August thanks

to our 5200 readers.

Keep the stories and tip offs coming and we can take independent journalism in the area to the next level.

thewhitbyindependent-at-googlemail.com (replace -at- with @)

Whitby in film on the International Space Station.

Whitby had a rare disctinction earlier this year: a film which included the town was played on the International Space Station while it orbited 120-odd miles above the earth. Astronaut and flight surgeon Mike Barratt spent his 50th birthday on the ISS. He is a sailor, a supporter of another project TWI supports and a huge fan of Captain James Cook. So we thought it would be good for this modern day explorer to receive birthday greetings from the place where his exploring ancestor James Cook learned his seamanship skills. WordPress doesn’t allow video embeds, so click here to see Whitby in space.

The International Space Station next overflies Whitby at 9.42 pm on Tuesday 8th September, and should be visible for around seven minutes in a clear sky. To find out the ISS’s current position click here and to find when you can see it wherever you live, go here.

Whitby late summer fishing festival results.

Thanks to Glenn at Whitby Sea Anglers for the update. Teen-pound ling seem to be coming out thick and fast, but congrats to Nick Teal from Sutton-in-Ashfield for his 23lb 5.5oz ling, biggest of the competition so far. TWI bets that fish was a handful when it was hauled aboard.

Results
Day One – Cancelled due to poor weather
Day Two – Cancelled due to poor weather

Day Three -
Colin Stainthorpe, ling 19lb 4oz, Never Can Tell A
Alan Duke, ling 16lb 13oz, Never Can Tell A
Mark Laidlow, cod 13lb 14oz, Shy Torque III.

Day Four
Robert Jude, ling 16lb 15.5oz, Two Dogs
Peter Fishpool, ling 10lb 10oz, Never Can Tell A
Mick Timlin, ling 9lb 15oz, Two Dogs.

Day five

Alison Gibson ling 16lb 1.5oz, Sea Urchin III;
Sue Maskill ling 14lb Trot On
Ian Wilkinson ling 9lb 7oz, Two Dogs.

Day six

Nick Teal, Sutton-in-Ashfield, ling 23lb 5.5oz
Chay Murden, Nottingham, ling 18lb 13.5oz, Trot On
Michael Spragg, Bubwith, ling 16lb 13.5oz.

Dock End repairs and the Harbour.

TWI reports, SBC fixes:

Timber repairs to Dock End jetty.

SBC must be getting very edgy about their liabilities surrounding Whitby Harbour. Having finally been persuaded to reliquish direct control of Harbour administration (it is a very nice cash cow), the law requires that they hand the Harbour over to the new Board in the same condition in which they inherited it.

Rotten beam supporting timbers and a ladder at Dock End

Even a cursory glance around the place and Scarborough’s legacy of neglect shows everywhere: rotting timbers, ill-advised engineering projects and piers with a repair bill heading towards £30 million. SBC can’t fix this by bunging a plank in. This ladder (pic right) has been closed.

Who in their right mind would want to to take on a Harbour with such liabilities? How will SBC fund the repairs necessary to bring Whitby port back up to the condition in which they inherited it and who will decide what the baseline condition was and whether the repairs have been properly done? Surely not SBC. They have a vested interest in not admitting their responsibility for the deterioration, evading the costs of repairing it to status quo ante and loading the costs on which ever mug they can find to take the port of Whitby on.

SBC’s record on major infractrusture coastal work shows that they were quite prepared to act in a corrupt fashion over the Scarborough sea wall tender process. Whitby’s councillors, who have for 35 years allowed Scarborough to neglect the Harbour, need to be on their mettle in guarding Whitby’s interests. But they would need to find some first.

Whitby West Cliff booking office ticket sales saved.

After SBC’s catastropic decision to close the booking office until a new tenant took over led to a crash in Pavilion Ticket sales (first reported in TWI), SBC has struck a deal with the new tenant so that ticket sales will continue alongside sales of food, drinks and beach goods.

“SBC’s tourism manager Janet Deacon said: “The leasing of this unit to Mr Dickinson will enable us to provide a new tourism facility for our visitors and residents, and ensure that the income potential for the council and rate payer is maximised, while at the same time enabling us to continue to offer an extended, almost year round information and ticketing service for the Pavilion.”

Mr Dickinson, the new tenant of the property added: “Not only will I be selling my own goods but I will also provide a ticket selling service for the shows that will be on at the Pavilion. I feel very privileged to be able to operate the new business from this property and realise what a unique area of Whitby it is in.”

TWI asked SBC questions about this back in July. The ever-helpful press office passed the question on. SBC has yet to receive a reply. Which is rather rubbish service.

Pop legend Pete Waterman backs NYMR Bridge and Wheels appeal.

Legendary music producer and rail enthusiast Pete Waterman is giving his backing to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway’s “Bridge and Wheels” Appeal.

He recently met NYMR officials to be appraised of the progress of the Appeal, which seeks to raise sufficient funds to cover the cost of renewing Bridge 30, between Goathland and Grosmont, together with the cost of restoring a tank engine 80135, which is owned by the Railway.

Since its launch at the end of March, the Appeal has raised £170,000 through public donations including the generous support of the Railway’s own members. An additional £300,000 has been pledged by North Yorkshire County Council towards the bridge renewal as part of the Government’s commitment to transport-related projects in North Yorkshire over the next two years. The Railway has also submitted an application for £100,00 of European assistance.

The Horror! Celluloid shockers coming soon to Whitby…

The Bram Stoker Film Festival which runs from 16-19th October. A film festival for all those who like the darker side of cinema, being shown in the perfect horror venue, Whitby. Their programme for the three day even is here. All the movies are unrated for 18+ only and ticket start at £88 for the full four days of filmgoria to £30 for a day pass to all slaughterous screenings for that day.

In comments: “This is probably the best thing to happen to Whitby in global terms since the Endeavour visits. Any horror freak will tell you that the line-up is absolutely world class.”

Whitby voters more apathetic than Afghans.

Turnout in the recent Streonshalh byelection: 14.8%. Afghan general elections (last reports) with the Taleban threatening to kill people who vote: 30% turnout.

Whitby ‘wind farm hub’ development a ‘red herring’

according a a senior Scarborough Borough Council officer.

So the hinted at ‘30-40′ jobs and £500,000 investment may not be coming to Whitby after all, but a London PR company has got its un-named client a front-page story in a local newspaper.

Whitby Parish poll

Organizer Nigel Ward writes about the true costs of the Whitby Parish poll here. Figures bandied around at the time estimated the cost at £3-4000. The true figure was rather lower at £1200.

Richard Ineson contributes to the debate in coments and reposted in emails to TWI here.

Whitby rowers in Thames rowing marathon.

Members of Whitby’s rowing clubs will be in London this weekend taking part in the Great River Race.

The race, which starts at Docklands at 11.10 on Saturday, finishes 22 miles later at Ham near Richmond in West London. Whitby rowing fans interested in seeing how Whitby crews are getting on can log into the website and see the race in real time as each boat will be carrying a tracking beacon.

Sleights parish assembly

voted 11:2 in favour of retaining the status quo, wishing Esdaleside cum Ugglebarnby not to take part in discussions surrounding the possibility of forming a Whity and Esk Valley local authority independent of Scarborough Brorough Council.

Sleights parish assembly

this evening (Tuesday), Sleights Village Hall at 7pm.

The poll (edit: this should read assembly) has been called and organized by the electors of Eskdaleside cum Ugglebarnby after the chairman of the Parish Council refused a petition from the electors to convene an assembly.

The assembly has nonetheless been organized to discuss whether the Parish wishes to join with other Whitby and Eskdale councils in forming a local authority independent of Scarborough under the terms of the Sustainable Communities Act 2007.

The meeting is open to anyone, but only voters in the Parish may speak and vote.t: this should read assembly)