Mass suicide pact..

[Tomahawk]

Went to Brightlingsea harbour AGM and discussion about the possible future vision for the harbour. Everyone in the room (except me) was against everything being put forward. Even the Chairman of the Commissioners didn't appear to believe in the plan he was supposed to be putting forward.

In 20 years I see the place as a run down dump with the sailing clubs struggling for members, the wharf closed, no restaurants.. Children leaving the town few jobs and lots of DHSS... I would not want to live somewhere like that. But it appears to be what the locals want.

 

[penfold]

Did you make this observation at the meeting? If you didn't you're practically agreeing with the NIMBYs.

 

[millbeach]

Must admit, every year i go to Brightlingsea the town seems poorer and starting to get run down.

The "Hollywood cafe" closed last month, lady stated she could not make a living.

 

[Tomahawk]

Did you make this observation at the meeting? If you didn't you're practically agreeing with the NIMBYs.

Indeed I did. I was the only person who was positive about the harbour plan. When I spoke in favour of the ideas being put forward I was roundly shouted down by a room full of very old people who are waiting to die.

 

[photodog]

I looked at the plans and can't see what folks are objecting too... They are so minor and inconsequential that I doubt they will make much if a difference... But certainly not something to get annoyed about.. The whole area is turning into a dump with the failure of the big development etc etc... Weird.

 

[penfold]

Indeed I did. I was the only person who was positive about the harbour plan. When I spoke in favour of the ideas being put forward I was roundly shouted down by a room full of very old people who are waiting to die.

Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll not wait long. Did they offer any logical objections or was it just NIMBY rowlocks? Barring the fantasy boatyard proposal for the commercial wharf and the weird deck thing it all looks affordable and sensible.

 

[chinita]

Perhaps it is the failure of the big development which is putting people off any further plans for change. Once bitten......etc.

IMO that mess should be sorted out first - until it is it is going to be a continuing, and deteriorating, eyesore.

 

[photodog]

Perhaps it is the failure of the big development which is putting people off any further plans for change. Once bitten......etc.

IMO that mess should be sorted out first - until it is it is going to be a continuing, and deteriorating, eyesore.

Yeah, that should be priority number one... If it's sorted the whole place will change and anyother change will be easier as folks see the potential... Even just cutting the grass and sorting out the sales office next to the slip would be a huge step forward.. Turning that into something usefull would be a good thing... And doing something with all the bloody awfull hoardings..

 

[MikeBz]

When I spoke in favour of the ideas being put forward I was roundly shouted down by a room full of very old people who are waiting to die.

And lots of other people as well, many of whom I suspect are younger than you. You are under the illusion that if the harbour doesn't change then it will 'die' and our children will 'end up in poverty'. This logic may apply to a company building cars, or to a fully-serviced marina, but it doesn't apply to a collection of moorings. There will always be a demand for swinging & fore-and aft moorings, the assertion that they must be replaced with pontoons or the place will die is just absurd. Adding a couple more pontoons will make JS difference to how run-down the town is.

In 20 years I see the place as a run down dump with the sailing clubs struggling for members, the wharf closed, no restaurants.. Children leaving the town few jobs and lots of DHSS... I would not want to live somewhere like that. But it appears to be what the locals want.

If you believe that replacing some existing moorings with an extra pontoon will change all that then you may need to adjust your medication.

Up, down, and around the coast there are increasing numbers of empty berths in marinas and empty moorings on rivers. Brightlingsea still has a waiting list, which must mean it has got something right and that there is a healthy demand for reasonably priced moorings with minimal services as an alternative to marina-style facilities. That is the harbour's current strength and differentiation from other places. It also reduces the Trust's financial exposure to a downturn by keeping overheads low.

And to your final point which was that we must change in order to protect our children's children's future, if you believe in the fallacy that constant change is the only option then any changes made now will be utterly irrelevant by the time our children's children come along anyway.

You seem to be irked by the fact that you can't get a mooring here and demand that the place changes to accommodate you. Not all change is progress. Jamming the place full of pontoons will be good for some people and bad for others. We already have a reasonable mix of both - pontoons for bigger boats and fore'n'aft and swinging moorings for those with smaller boats and budgets. And in practical terms there simply isn't sufficient water for the additional pontoon which has been proposed without a huge initial dredging project and continual dredging after that - all of which would be at the expense of a large number of very pleasant existing moorings and would force a lot of existing mooring holders to either stump up more more for a pontoon berth that they don't want or leave. At the end of the day the harbour is limited in size, and you can't change that.

I thought the decking over the top of the hard was quite a nice idea, but since it won't generate revenue for the Trust then I can't see that it's within their remit to do it. The westwards extension of the hammerhead sounds like a good idea too.

There was a lot of disquiet at the meeting about statements in the plan which talked about "optimising revenue streams" and "restructuring berthing tariffs" - I think most people would naturally interpret this stuff as bullsh*t-bingo speak for putting the prices up.

 

[Koeketiene]

There was a lot of disquiet at the meeting about statements in the plan which talked about "optimising revenue streams" and "restructuring berthing tariffs" - I think most people would naturally interpret this stuff as bullsh*t-bingo speak for putting the prices up.

And I suspect people are right to interpret it as such.

 

[Tomahawk]

And lots of other people as well, many of whom I suspect are younger than you. You are under the illusion that if the harbour doesn't change then it will 'die' and our children will 'end up in poverty'. ...

Mike

Thank you for taking the time to respond in such a thoughtful way. I take it youn were at the meeting?

You will recall I spoke on two ocassions. The first was when I explained that I would like to base ourselves at Brightlingsea. The second was when I asked about the future of the town. Can I ask you a simple question?

Are there more shops and services in the town today than there were when I learned to sail at BSC back in the 70's? We both know the answer. The lovely pub next to the hard has gone. The chip shop has gone. The Kovalinum is struggeling. The boat yards have gone, Sailcraft have gone, The pub on the corner of New St and Coln Rd (was it the Northern Star?) has gone. The Brewers Arms is reduced to selliing all the wines, red white and rosey. The High Street looks like a ghost street. As the ex commissioner (chap with a beard by the door) said, property on the seafront is not valuable enough to be worth protecting so it is now uninsurable and will deterioriate. The waterside development has failed and is apparently being rented to DHSS.

You say there is a waiting list. From the mood of the meeting, it was apparent that people just want cheap moorings. Whilst that is nice for the people whe have them, cheap moorings means cheap people who do not have any money to spend in the local shops which means theeu close. Where do your children see themselves bringing up a family?

In short, unless I am wrong and all the closed business are a figment of my imagination, the town is dying on its feet.

It does not matter to me one wee jot that your town is dying. I can move my boat and take my money elsewhere. It would be lovely to move to Brightlingsea. However, if the attitude displayed by the meeting is any reflection of the community, I would never want to live with such a bunch of short sighted and poor people.

I suspect that in a short while more shops will close. The town will continue to change but it will be for the worse. When it happens and you can't get any services in town, Please remember that you objected to being part of the change.

 

[chinita]

I don't see anything particularly unusual in the demise of Brightlingsea. The other week I walked up Felixtowe High Street and there must have been twenty Charity Shops and a number of closed pubs.

Last year, taking the bus from Pin Mill to Ipswich I think I counted eleven closed pubs on the route.

This is not a measure of the town or area, it is a reflection of how Government has changed our society. Expensive pub prices, drinking and driving, cheap booze in supermarkets, out of town shopping centres - all have contributed to small town closures.

I don't think that investing a load of money into visiting yachtsman's facilites in Brightlingsea is going to turn things around.

 

[Tomahawk]

Of course you ae absolutelly right about the changes on the high street. Most small towns have lost most of the services that once provided work and propsperity.

However in places like Brightlingsea it is more marked. It is located on a peninsular with only one road in and out. Indeed there should be a dead end sign next to the garage at Thorringdon. Places that are inaccessibke are always associated with deprivation and poverty unless there is some sort of "honey pot" to attract wealth. In the case of Brightlingsea it is the harbour. Indeed the place only exists because of the harbour. It is therefor essential for the survival of Brightlingsea that the harbour attracts a high value people who can create wealth, or at least bring wealth with them.

Given its location and the vey close proximity to the open water, it is unique on the East Coast. From slipping your moorings to the open water is only a matter of minutes. That alone should be enough to attract many many visiting and premanent boats. Thqt could halp turn the town about.

But it needs vision and forward thinking.

People in the town have neither and the town will die.

 

[MikeBz]

Mike

Thank you for taking the time to respond in such a thoughtful way. I take it youn were at the meeting?

Yes I was.

You will recall I spoke on two ocassions. The first was when I explained that I would like to base ourselves at Brightlingsea. The second was when I asked about the future of the town. Can I ask you a simple question?

Yes of course.

Are there more shops and services in the town today than there were when I learned to sail at BSC back in the 70's?
We both know the answer.

Indeed. And the answer is the same in a huge number of other small towns around the country. But to suggest that a few changes to the harbour will have any significant impact on that is absurd.

The lovely pub next to the hard has gone.

Pubs are closing at a rate of 31 a week in England at present. Adding a handful of permanent moorings will have zero impact on that. We get a large number of visiting yachts at weekends in the summer but I doubt even that has any significant impact.

The chip shop has gone.

It closed for a while when the owners retired. It was open and thriving under new ownership this summer but has now closed for the winter (which seems a bit premature - there is good business for it at weekends still but I guess that's the owners decision).

The boat yards have gone, Sailcraft have gone, The pub on the corner of New St and Coln Rd (was it the Northern Star?) has gone. The Brewers Arms is reduced to selliing all the wines, red white and rosey. The High Street looks like a ghost street. As the ex commissioner (chap with a beard by the door) said, property on the seafront is not valuable enough to be worth protecting so it is now uninsurable and will deterioriate. The waterside development has failed and is apparently being rented to DHSS.

Can I ask you a question? How would adding a few more higher cost moorings have any effect on the points you've mentioned above? The amount of people and money required to prevent those things from happening is just in a completely different ballpark. The Waterside development (a 'change' which a lot of people were against, rightly as it has turned out) was sold to the planners on the basis that it would bring shop, restaurants and prosperity - do you really believe that if the harbour had a few more moorings then the outcome would have been different?

You say there is a waiting list.

I think you know that as well!

From the mood of the meeting, it was apparent that people just want cheap moorings.

People want to retain a mixture of different types of moorings & costs. We already have a considerable amount of pontoonage.

Whilst that is nice for the people whe have them, cheap moorings means cheap people who do not have any money to spend in the local shops which means theeu close.

I don't consider it socially acceptable to drive the "cheap people" away, but leaving that to one side I say again that a berthing/mooring facility no matter how wonderful it is and no matter how rich a folk it attracts will NEVER fund a high street of shops & businesses. Take a look around the country at marinas - most of them have absolutely nothing around them and just about support a single bar/restaurant which is empty a lot of the time. Turning Brightlingsea into a marina would not 'make' the town or have any significant impact on it.

In short, unless I am wrong and all the closed business are a figment of my imagination, the town is dying on its feet.

It does not matter to me one wee jot that your town is dying. I can move my boat and take my money elsewhere. It would be lovely to move to Brightlingsea. However, if the attitude displayed by the meeting is any reflection of the community, I would never want to live with such a bunch of short sighted and poor people.

I suspect that in a short while more shops will close. The town will continue to change but it will be for the worse. When it happens and you can't get any services in town, Please remember that you objected to being part of the change.

Oh FFS. Please tell me which change or changes in the "Master plan" (which it turns out is not a plan at all, it's a list of suggestions drawn up by a company which specialises in marina developments and was paid £50k to come up with some ideas) will bring in the several million pounds a year that it would take to turn the town around?

You've made some pretty wild accusations and insults, including "Please remember that you objected to being part of the change", all of which are based on an entirely fallacious argument. Actually I'm not against change, and nor are most of the people at the meeting but changes which benefit a small number of people at the expense of a larger number maybe won't be so popular. I have no doubt there are positive changes which could be made but they need to be considered, and just pushing through a list of arbitrary changes under the absurd threat that "your town will die otherwise" is going to get short shrift.

And finally.... it's not just about 'poor people' as you like to call us, it's about maintaining the character and charm of the harbour which is the reason why we get so many visitors in the first place.

 

[MikeBz]

Places that are inaccessibke are always associated with deprivation and poverty unless there is some sort of "honey pot" to attract wealth. In the case of Brightlingsea it is the harbour.

The marina development was supposed to be the honey pot and we know how that went. Again, please explain how the plan presented makes the massive change that would be required to provide this honey pot?

Indeed the place only exists because of the harbour. It is therefor essential for the survival of Brightlingsea that the harbour attracts a high value people who can create wealth, or at least bring wealth with them.

For the harbour users it exists because of the harbour, but they are tiny percentage of the town's population and always will be.

But it needs vision and forward thinking.

People in the town have neither and the town will die.

How extraordinarily rude and arrogant.

 

[chinita]

I am interested in the apparent sneering at 'poor people' and the wish to attract 'wealth'.

IME, poor people eat chips, pub food and drink a lot of beer in places like Brightlingsea. 'Wealthy' people do not.

I have a friend who keeps his 44ft £300k MoBo in Lymington - berthing about £11k pa. I don't think that, in the past ten years, he has been ashore to a local pub or restaurant. Every weekend they drive there in their Porsche and unload the Waitrose goodies to scoff and quaff on board.

 

[Elemental]

I hope no-one mind me chipping in. I don't live in Brightlingsea , never will.

However, I have been sailing to Brightlingsea fairly regularly for the last 6 years or so. It's a charming traditional town - we enjoy it there. The fact that we may have to land on an old hard, and/or have to walk away from the seafront doesn't really bother us. However, it's noticeable that the town has changed, for the worse, during the time I've been visiting. There may come a time, when we prefer not to visit so often. 'Quaint' only works for so long.

I've looked at the plans and they seem like a sensible start. Arguing about the 'direct' contribution of a few yachties is, IMHO, missing the point. If the town wants to recover it has to position itself as a successful, thriving, proposition. It has to make people (tourists) want to go there. A a town that is looking forward rather than behind will attract similar businesses. Why would a land based tourist come and visit? Probably not just to see a run-down waterfront. I look at places like Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne. The town itself is not exactly a thriving metropolis, but the SH area is always busy with visitors and tourists. Tourists bring money and more tourists. Waterside restaurants everywhere (yes some come and go, but last time I looked there were no empty units). Lots of residential flats attracting young successful owners who all contribute to the local economy. Just because one waterside development, in isolation, hasn't been successful (yet) doesn't mean that with properly managed development and modernisation the whole idea is flawed.

Brightlingsea has a lot going for it and it should always attempt to preserve its traditional roots. This sort of debate is exactly what it needs. However, chip shops that have to close in winter time are not indicative of prosperity. I sincerely hope that the town can see its way forward and drag itself out of the spiral of decline it appears to be in at the moment.

 

[ianfr]

I hope no-one mind me chipping in. I don't live in Brightlingsea , never will.

However, I have been sailing to Brightlingsea fairly regularly for the last 6 years or so. It's a charming traditional town - we enjoy it there. The fact that we may have to land on an old hard, and/or have to walk away from the seafront doesn't really bother us. However, it's noticeable that the town has changed, for the worse, during the time I've been visiting. There may come a time, when we prefer not to visit so often. 'Quaint' only works for so long.

I've looked at the plans and they seem like a sensible start. Arguing about the 'direct' contribution of a few yachties is, IMHO, missing the point. If the town wants to recover it has to position itself as a successful, thriving, proposition. It has to make people (tourists) want to go there. A a town that is looking forward rather than behind will attract similar businesses. Why would a land based tourist come and visit? Probably not just to see a run-down waterfront. I look at places like Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne. The town itself is not exactly a thriving metropolis, but the SH area is always busy with visitors and tourists. Tourists bring money and more tourists. Waterside restaurants everywhere (yes some come and go, but last time I looked there were no empty units). Lots of residential flats attracting young successful owners who all contribute to the local economy. Just because one waterside development, in isolation, hasn't been successful (yet) doesn't mean that with properly managed development and modernisation the whole idea is flawed.

Brightlingsea has a lot going for it and it should always attempt to preserve its traditional roots. This sort of debate is exactly what it needs. However, chip shops that have to close in winter time are not indicative of prosperity. I sincerely hope that the town can see its way forward and drag itself out of the spiral of decline it appears to be in at the moment.

I generally agree with the sentiments stated above.

Ian & Jo

 

[MikeBz]

I totally agree that the way to bring money in is via tourism or attracting new residents, not a few yachties. The harbour is already rammed full of water-born visitors on a sunny summer weekend - I'll bet they spend more money than non-resident berth holders do. Marinas do very little to attract money outside of the marina walls. The only things in the 'plan' which might benefit tourism are the decking over the hard and to a small extent the hammerhead extension, both of which I think are not bad ideas (none of the ideas are bad per se, but they have plusses and minuses). I agree that sticking your head in the sand and refusing any change is dumb, but so is promoting change on a false premise and then castigating all who don't agree with that premise.

I don't think it would be a bad sign if the town can't support 3 chip shops in the winter, the other 2 do very well all year round. I'm sure the one on the hard could do a reasonable business in the winter if the new owners were so inclined.

Sadly the Waterside development was an opportunity wasted in terms of benefitting the town, I'm sure there were good ideas which would have it attractive from a tourism and general use by the public point of view but no money to implement them.

PS most of the issues which are coming up here are things which should be aimed at the town council, it is not within the remit, ability or financial means of the non-profit Harbour Trust to organise development of the entire water front (nice though that may be).

 

[tidclacy]

I visited Brittany north and west coast this summer and found many small ports doing thriving business due to land and sea tourists. I agree Brightlingsea has a lot going for it and it should always attempt to preserve its traditional roots but I believe we should always have a long term plan to upgrade and encourage people to visit and live. I dont know if this is the right plan but lets keep on trying. Wivenhoe and Rowhedge seem to do well.