High & Dry in Scarborough Harbour

North Yorks Enquirer’s Harbour correspondent ALLAN ROBERTS writes to report the grounding in Scarborough Harbour, at high water, of the replica Spanish galéon “ANDALUCIA” – a humiliation that (as chance would have it) happened to coincide with North Yorkshire Council’s senior Councillors unanimously agreeing to allocate some land at the site for “non-harbour” purposes as part of the much-reviled £11m scheme to re-purpose the West Pier as a tourism plaza. See the BBC report, here.

Selby member, Councillor Mark CRANE, recently-appointed Executive Member for Business (including the over-arching responsibility for Harbours) has been quoted, in email correspondence, as admitting that he does not know much about harbours. Splendid.

Readers are also recommended to re-visit Allan’s earlier article “Dredging the Depths of Fiasco”, here.

Over to Allan . . .

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As we see the embarrassing images of the replica galéon ‘ANDALUCIA’ aground in the centre of Scarborough Harbour, at high water, before a local fishing vessel came to her aid, by pushing her safely to the quayside, perhaps now is an appropriate time to reflect on the conditions which contributed greatly to this mishap.

Please note that:

• The historical Harbour Master’s quarterly Reports show that the last dredging operations at Scarborough Harbour took place on just one brief period of around 8 days in late 2019.

• From March 2020 the Borough Dredger was placed into a Ship Management Agreement, at a cost to the taxpayer of £500,000 over 5 years.

• An FOIA request dated 26th June 2024, also revealsthat the Borough Dredger has NEVER visited Scarborough Harbour since 2019.

• Since April 2020, Scarborough Harbour Department has been re-charged, to the Borough Dredger account, a total of £176,000 for ZERO dredging services over the last 4 years.

Below are the recharge figures supplied by North Yorkshire Council:

April 1st 2020 until March 31st 2021 – £44,000

April 1st 2021 until March 31st 2022 – £44,000

April 1st 2022 until March 31st 2023 – £44,000

April 1st 2023 until March 31st 2024 – £44,000

Value for money – or what?