Last Updated on October 6, 2024 by Phil Hamerton
The Council’s confidential briefing to Harbour Board Members, issued in advance of the Harbour Board meeting on 12th September has been made public following an FOI from OCHDA. In the event the briefing contained no secret information, nor did the covering e-mail. The briefing did, however, summarise the key themes of the objections, with a numerical assessment (e.g. 78 of 142 responses to the consultation raised concerns over moorings).
What the briefing then does is repeat much of what was in the Council’s ‘written representation’ which we received a few days later. There is the usual unclear information about, for example, moorings, and other material which seems designed to assure the Councillors on the Harbour Board that all is well and all objections are misplaced. The briefing attempts to justify the Council’s intention not to bring the revised HRO back to the Harbour Board since “none of the matters highlighted… materially alters the character of the order”. This despite the fact that the harbour limits, both on land and on sea, are no longer as described in the original draft which was the subject of formal consultation!