Planners are all at sea over realities of seaside attractions

I HAVE been a regular visitor to Bridlington since 1945 and have owned property there for more than 35 years, so I think that I am qualified to comment on your extensive coverage on the resort’s future (Yorkshire Post, August 11).

There is one thing that we can all agree on and this is the need to attract more visitors bringing in their cash to spend in the town. But it has to be 365 days a year, not just on sunny days and bank holidays, and a marina will not do that.

I have visited marinas all over the world and apart from envious comments about some of the boats, they do not generate any more business than our current harbour achieves. After all, who would walk round a marina on a wet and windy day, winter or summer? And where would you sail to? Grimsby? Even a crossing of the North Sea is too far for even a long weekend. A marina would become caravans on water.

Southend-on-Sea recently spent £15m on creating an arts centre, a unique attraction to get people to come to their ailing resort. I believe that they have some success. That is what Bridlington needs. During the 2001 public inquiry into ERYC’s marina proposal, when there was criticism that there was no local input to development ideas, I wrote a 48-page paper to suggest that they erect a year-round exhibition centre, where a different show would be held every weekend. From DIY to weddings, motors to gardening and everything else in between, where regular visitors would come and thus spend money in the town. ERYC turned the idea down, suggesting that they could do something similar when the Spa was complete, but nothing has materialised yet.

In all of their plans, both past and present, they have forgotten the bread and butter visitor, families on the beach, no shelters from sudden showers and expensive and poorly organised parking.

So, I am afraid, like Brunel, the planners are full of bluster, grandiose and sometimes impractical ideas and very fond of spending other people’s money, but the end result is seriously lacking realism, and taking no notice of local opinion or knowledge.

From: Paul Andrews, The Beeches, Great Habton, York.

AS the owner of a small yacht, I have for the last 17 years watched with dismay the saga of Bridlington harbour.

Bridlington is one of the best locations for watersports in the country – possibly better than even Weymouth – because its coast is protected and sheltered by Flamborough Head and the mile-long, totally submerged “Smithwick Sands” bank. It also provides excellent opportunities for commercial fishing.

A marina at Bridlington would lift the town, and could make it one of the prime locations for national watersports, and there have been several proposals for a new marina over the years.

The Harbour Commissioners are the usual scapegoats for the failure of these schemes, but this is an over-simplification.

The real problem as I see it is a power struggle between East Riding Council and the Harbour Commissioners for which they are both equally to blame. Basically the council wants to take over the harbour and the commissioners won’t accept this. This kind of power game and the inevitable uncertainty does nobody any good. The best way forward to certainty and prosperity can only be by agreement. The council and the commissioners need to get together and reach a compromise.