We have been following the debacle with the lack of dredging in Whitby harbour for some time. Given that North Yorkshire Council (NYC) finally received a dredging licence for Whitby harbour, it was topical that a member of the public had put in an FOI asking for the current harbour sounding levels. Let’s not forget that the HarbourMaster had said they conduct regular harbour sounding surveys, so it would be good to know what situation the dredger is now facing.
In their response to the FOI, NYC asked the member of the public “not to publicise the response (for navigational safety)”. It has to be said that if information is obtained via the public purse and not breaching any law then it has to be divulged via an FOI. Also if “navigational safety” was the primary concern for a Harbour Authority they would
- not have let the dredging licence lapse in the first place, and not taken so long to get a replacement (resulting in the sounding levels currently exhibited), and
- performed the necessary dive surveys on the Whitby pier extensions, at 5 yr intervals since 2012 in accordance with the advice from Royal Haskoning, and been working on a plan for the repair of these pier extensions in the intervening period.
We will publicise the FOI response, with the specific note that this was the situation on 22/04/2025 and so current levels “may not be the same” (though they will be representative). Besides, having visibility of what to likely expect within a harbour (and with the problems widely discussed by harbour users) should be considered a good thing.
Firstly here is the lower harbour.
and now the upper harbour.
Significant areas of major concern present in those 2 charts, but particularly in the Upper Harbour where levels very far away from the target depths. Now that a dredging licence is in place we look forward to NYC getting back to the work of a Harbour Authority and making sure that the harbour is navegable for all harbour users, and not just 2 hours outside of low tide.
You can always compare these with a year earlier or with the target depths.
