Parish supports providing facilities for visiting anglers at ponds site

Ian Hannington wants to install warden accommodation as well as eight static caravans for anglers at Kelsey Gardens fishing ponds, near Burstwick.

Both ponds have been used for fishing for years, with one at the southern end also used for water sports. Mr Hannington also wants to build a car park, and site a portable toilet and shower block on the site along with a mobile catering trailer.

Supporters say Mr Hannington has transformed a site which used to be “plagued by youngsters up to no good”, with visitors camping rough, cars dumped into the ponds and uncontrolled jet skiing late into the night.

Burstwick Parish Council is also backing the proposals, which will be discussed at a meeting of the eastern area planning sub committee next Monday, saying locals can now walk their dogs on footpaths which run through the site “without feeling intimidated by out of town youths”.

They think the site should be manned around the clock as “any lack of supervision would be quickly noticed and all the old problems experienced in the area would soon return to undo the hard work put in over the last few years”. But council planners are recommending refusal, saying the site could be managed from Burstwick five minutes away. They say the temporary warden accommodation conflicts with planning policies restricting development in the countryside “since it has not been demonstrated that there is an essential need for the applicant to live on site”.