Harbour Maintenance
Here we provide a summary of (some of) the harbour maintenance issues that we are aware of. A filled-in circle is work that has completed. A part filled circle is work that has some level of funding allocated. The remainder are active problems.
Inner Harbour
Outer Harbour
The above problems are all known about, reported and understood, but many of them are seemingly ignored by the harbour authority. Below are photos highlighting some of the issues. Thanks go to many local people for these, particularly current and former harbour users. Click on a photo for a larger version.
Further evidence is readily available online, for example this video highlighting the closing off of the lower decks of the pier extensions.
Harbour Spend
We list here where there is known harbour spend
- East Pier Footbridge (2017): costing £300k after 20 years without a bridge. £120k came from Whitby Town Council (paid over 20 years from precept), and the rest from the European Maritime Fisheries Fund, and a small amount from SBC.
- West Pier, East Pier (2018-2020): strengthening and maintaining the structure, removing damaged masonry blocks and replacing them with sandstone blocks, together with flood diverter wall on West Pier slipway. £7.6m of funding, with approximately £4.8m from the Environment Agency, and the rest from the EU, and NYC.
- Church Street Flood Alleviation Scheme (2020) : £2.1m, made up of £1.1m from YNY LEP, DEFRA £672k, £246k Local Flood Levy, £61k SBC and £15k from NYC.
- Fish Pier (Apr 2023) : £165,000 of work required to replace sheet piling. £82,500 from NYC and £82,500 from RNLI.
- West Pier Lighthouse (Feb 2024) : £252,000 (from NYC) will be spent on design and investigation works on the Grade II listed lighthouse which is in a poor condition. The building has been netted and the area around the base closed with barriers. Note however that this is “design and investigation“; significant further funding will be required for any actual remedial work.
- Eskside Wharf (Feb 2024) : NYC “officers have expedited work to develop an infrastructure repair/replacement programme in relation to the harbour sheet pile walls. The first phase of this programme is to complete the detailed design work for the replacement of the sheet piling at Eskside Wharf and the final report from the consultant designers is due imminently.“
- East Pier, West Pier capstans : we are informed that the capstans on West Pier are to be replaced. These are seemingly part of a contract with J Hallam Joinery, a local company, for SBC’s “Project Sunshine” (we have seen East Pier capstans listed in council minutes).
- Maritime Hub (Mar 2024) : a proposed building on Endeavour Wharf car park due to go into planning (£10m Dept for Levelling Up Homes and Communities funding).
It should be noted that the harbour authority for much of this period (until March 2023) was SBC, contributing only relatively small amounts to the East Pier Footbridge, and to the East/West Pier renovations.
For the remainder the harbour authority is NYC, contributing amounts to the lighthouse renovation investigation, the Fish Pier piling work and the capstan replacements.
Clearly had harbour funds been ring-fenced such works could have taken place when they were really needed rather than when things were at the point of collapse (aka “firefighting mentality”). It could be argued that the current practice is even worse, with some things being left to decay and then simply being removed and not replaced.