| 31 December 2010. The statutory order authorising the construction of the bridge over navigable waters to North Quay was approved on December 16th. The order can be read here. |
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| 28 December 2010. The Hayle Harbour Advisory Committee now has a web site. Click on www.hhac.org.uk. |
07 December 2010. The Sun reports that two of the directors of Crown Currency Exchange, formerly based in Hayle, have been arrested. Read the full story on the Sun's site. |
02 December 2010. The decision on a supermarket in Hayle is drawing closer. There is to be a public meeting at Hayle Community School at 6-30pm on Wednesday, 19th January and Hayle Town Council will give their official view the following evening at 7-15pm at Hayle Community Centre. The decision will be made at the Cornwall Council Strategic Planning Meeting on February 3rd.
You must come and make your views known or others will make the decision for you. |
| 03 November 2010. The Wave Hub project is now complete and the system energised. All that is needed now is up to 4 wave energy generators to connect to the hub to generate a maximum of 20MW. The first is expected to be Ocean Power Technologies' PowerBuoy which could be deployed within a year. |
01 November 2010. A dredging protocol has been produced by Buro Happold for Hayle Harbour Authority Ltd. as a requirement of the now expired dredging licence issued by Penwith District Council. It contains some very large numbers for the amount of sand that needs to be dredged to clear the channel.
You can read a copy here [2Mb] and also read the results of the chemical analysis of the dredged material here. [2Mb] |
Cornishman, 7 Oct 2010 |
Hayle Times, 8 Oct 2010 |
 08 October 2010. Developer (and applicant) Actoris with Morrisons, and their agent Savills, gave a presentation to the town council on the state of their planning application which was accepted on 22 April and had a target determination date of 22 July (13 weeks). The council was informed that Actoris had attempted to negotiate with ING but were rebuffed. Actoris is willing to cover the cost of the restoration of the South Quay walls and the footbridge over Penpol Creek by way of a S106 contribution. This would enable ING to build in accordance with their existing planning permission. It was reported that there are no outstanding items from consultees, including highways, ICOMOS and the EA and their application is ready to go in front of the planning committee.
To date, only the Sainsbury and Morrisons teams have planning applications submitted. The Sainsbury application was validated on 26 July. |
 03 October 2010. Crown Currency Exchange, one of the UK's largest personal currency exchange businesses, has had its bank accounts with Barclays frozen - leaving many without holiday travel money. I have had several phone calls from around the country asking why the phones in its Hayle head office, at John Harvey House, have not been answered. Apparently, three-quarters of their staff were laid-off on Thursday and given three-months pay. CCE is a major tenant of charity Harvey's Foundry Trust. |
 01 October 2010. Hayle Town Council received a presentation on the revised plans for the ASDA supermarket at the rugby ground. The store size is being reduced, parking can be shared with the M&S site (relieving an on-going congestion problem), the design of the Loggans roundabout appears to work and also provides a level crossing point for pedestrians and the plans for the new rugby ground are approved by the Rugby Club - who feel they would be the envy of every club in Cornwall!
In a postscript to that meeting, after ASDA had left, Richard Walker of Walker Developments, the agent for ASDA, revealed to the Council an offer made to ING's agent to buy 35% of the land on the South Quay earmarked for the supermarket for £5,000,000. That land would be gifted to the Town Council for regeneration purposes. ING would not build a supermarket but could develop the remaining land according to the approved Master Plan. It will be interesting to see how this proposal develops. |
 01 October 2010. Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is set to become one of the best-connected locations in the world under an ambitious £132 million project announced today by BT and Cornwall Council. The Duchy will benefit from faster broadband thanks to the creation of a high speed network, with the aim of giving between 80% and 90% of local businesses and homes access to super fast fibre broadband by 2014, with speeds of up to 100Mbps. |
 09 September 2010. ING has just created a new web site at hayleharbour.com. The site highlights the good things that ING is doing and is believed to be the initiative of their PR consultant, Gary Cartmell.
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08 August 2010. St. Julia's Hospice needs to raise £1.5 million for its new extension. The planned development will increase the number of beds at St Julia’s by 50% and create a dedicated and separate area for day patients. With ever increasing demand on the services at St Julia’s, this extension will allow more people to receive the specialist support they so desperately need.
Currently Cornwall has 24 adult palliative care beds and all of these are provided by Cornwall Hospice Care. In the recent past patients have had to be turned away, which is frustrating for the medical team and extremely disappointing for patients and their families. This project at St Julia’s is part of the ongoing commitment to meet the growing hospice needs of the people of Cornwall.
There will be a sponsored walk on 12 September and I urge to to either join in or to sponsor walkers. |
| 30 July 2010. Ray Wyse was out in the harbour on Thursday and took this photo of the cable-laying ship, MV Nordica. We understand that the actual connection to the shore will take place on Monday. |
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18 July 2010. Creative and Media Diploma students Ben Amos and Jack Reynolds Amos from Penwith College have been busy filming and editing a promotional video about the Hayle Pioneerium project.
Entitled "Night and Day at the Pioneerium" it will be premiered at the Screen Machine event in Hayle between August 26th and 30th.
Pirate FM has kindly agreed to support and publicise the Screen Machine event on a pro bono basis. Bob McCreadie is seen here with the guys recording the voice over. More information can be found about the project and Screen Machine event by clicking on the following link: www.haylepioneerium.co.uk |
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| 17 July 2010. I have now posted the Hayle Harbour Section 106 agreements and the Decision Notices. You can read them here. |
13 July 2010. Treasury takes axe to Convergence.
Cornwall was the only county in England to qualify for the EU Convergence programme. The Treasury’s moratorium on further spending by the European Convergence programme in Cornwall will hit growth businesses hard, starve them of investment and cost hundreds jobs.
The freeze – which prevents any ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) Convergence investment in projects that extend beyond March 2011 – turns off the tap for businesses in Cornwall hoping to access grant funding in order to grow.
This includes a £140 million pot that gap-funds new workspace and the Grant for Business Investment (GBI) scheme, which has an £8 million pot of money to invest in growth businesses in Cornwall. Both these schemes are 100% funded by ERDF Convergence and administered by the South West RDA.
It is not clear whether this moratorium will affect the £2.8m being sought for the Hayle Harbour infrastructure works. |
| 10 June 2010. What a difference a sign makes. It is now permitted to kite surf in the entrance to the estuary (details here). I can't say that I have noticed a reduction in kite surfing since it was 'banned', but perhaps now this exciting sport will bring more visitors to Hayle. |
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| 05 June 2010. The Wave Hub (shown below) is on track for installation this year. The beach in front of the Bluff will be trenched in June and July and the cable laid in one 12-mile long piece. The Wave Hub team is due to open an office in John Harvey House in August and will retain a presence there for at least three years. |
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The Wave Hub |
| 31 May 2010. The 'Hayle Harbour Authority' has issued a press release announcing a review of dredging in the harbour. There is also to be a resumption of kite surfing and the new harbour master will be holding 'surgeries'. Read the press release here. |
| 29 May 2010. Hayle Harbour has a new web site under the heading Hayle Harbour Authority, Ltd. The harbour authority formerly operated under the title of Hayle Harbour Management, Ltd. We now have a new harbour master, Mark Capon, who is extremely well qualified but, I understand, only allocating two days a month to Hayle. |
| 02 May 2010. The Environmental Services Group Ltd. was working over the Bank Holiday to conduct a survey for the Wave Hub project. The intention is to locate the level of the underlying rocks and to find a suitable route for the cables. |
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 23 April 2010. The Save Our Sands group, with the help of local Labour PPC, Jude Robinson, met with Baroness Dean to explain the situation with regard to sand mining in Hayle. Baroness Dean was dismayed and agreed to raise the issue in the House of Lords. The presentation was suitably illustrated by the regular interruptions of huge lorries carrying off the sand. |
Cllr. Clive Polkinghorne with Geoff Holman and Baroness Brenda Dean |
| 13 April 2010. It has been confirmed that Richard Ford is no longer Harbour Master at the Hayle harbour. Richard, a Hayle resident, was widely respected for his genuine concern for the harbour and its users. No formal annoucement has yet been made regarding his replacement. |
| 09 April 2010. The Environment Agency has issued the West Cornwall Catchment Flood Management Plan. Read it here. "This plan will allow us to use a scientific approach to understand and describe how the catchment behaves and what the most sustainable flood risk management policies may be over the next 50 to 100 years. We can then use this direction to plan the most acceptable ways of managing flood risk for the long-term." |
| 05 April 2010. A £100 million project to provide broadband speeds of between 100 megabits and one gigabit per second will mean that Cornwall has one of the fastest internet connections in Europe. It is expected to create 4,000 jobs and generate more than £250 million for the Cornish economy. It will act as a magnet for businesses, particularly in sectors such as animation, games development and design, as people move to the South West and take advantage of an online infrastructure equivalent to a large economic hub such as London.
Theo Leijser, Cornwall director for the South West Regional Development Agency, said: “Broadband can transform the Cornish economy and help new companies flourish. The network will put us in a very advantageous position and two to three years ahead of the game.” |
 04 April 2010. A new marine energy business park in Cornwall has received a £5m boost from the government. The South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) has secured the funding to build a new bridge, road and flood protection works at Hayle. The £13m renewable business park next to an old power station is expected to support 190 jobs. |
 01 April 2010. The GVA Grimley Assessment of Retail Planning Policy in relation to supermarkets on South Quay and at Marsh Lane has been issued and can be read here. The conclusion are in Section 5 and the following is highlighted there:
- If CC conclude that there is the potential for the South Quay and/or Jewsons sites to accommodate a foodstore development of an appropriate scale (taking appropriate account of the need for flexibility and CC’s determination of the current ING planning application on the South Quay site, including consultation responses received), then we would conclude that the current Sainsburys site fails the sequential approach to site selection as set out in the development plan and PPS4.
- Alternatively, if CC consider that the South Quay and Jewsons sites cannot (either individually or together) accommodate (under any reasonable circumstances) a foodstore development of an appropriate scale (taking appropriate account of the need forflexibility), and no other edge of centre sites can be identified, then the Sainsburys application has the potential to perform much better against the sequential approach.
Given that Sainsbury has acquired the Heliport in Penzance, the issue of their building in Hayle may be moot. Given that statutory consultees were strongly against a supermarket on South Quay that issue may be moot too. |
| 28 March 2010. Hayle beach carnage? Donald Thomson asks for local support to stop sand removal in this week's Cornishman. Read the letter here. |
| 25 March 2010. The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Shoreline Management Plan Review is underway and you can read the full details, including meeting dates, at www.ciscag.org. You can download the section relating to Hayle Harbour here (400k). The original SMP is here (700k) |
18 March 2010. Both Hayle and St. Ives town councils have passed resolutions objecting to the terms of the renewal application for the HHML dredging licence. Councillor Clive Polkinghorne has written to Cornwall Council Chief Executive Kevin Lavery complaining about the current dredging operation in the harbour. Click here for the text of his letter.
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Dredged sand stored on Dynamite Quay |
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Dredged sand stored on North Quay |
 10 March 2010. I have been elected chair of the Friends of Hayle Harbour and charged with bringing the harbour into the ownership of a charitable trust. Read more at www.fohh.org.uk and please lend your support. |
09 March 2010. ING has just issued this statement:
ING Real Estate Development UK Ltd has announced that, following its consultation programme on its plans for the redevelopment of South Quay, it is withdrawing its current application, so that it can address the points which have come to light during the process. ING would like to thank all those individuals, organisations and consultees who have taken the time to provide valuable feedback.
ING will now review its plans and return with a revised application which will reflect the feedback and in particular concentrate on the issues of heritage, access and linkages and design details.
Marcel Kooij, Managing Director at ING Real Estate Development UK Ltd commented: “ING confirms its continued commitment to the regeneration of the historic harbour. South Quay remains the most appropriate site overall in planning terms for the foodstore and this first phase of development. We are confident that we can deliver the right scheme which can provide the catalyst to revitialising Hayle’s town centre.”
Read my comments on my blog - and add your views.
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| 04 March 2010. In a busy evening for the town council, they resolved to oppose reissuing any version of a dredging licence and to investigate Sunday closures of King George V Memorial Walk commencing July 11. There was also official notification that, if ING does not withdraw its supermarket application, officers will recommend refusal - a likely death knell to the current application. |
The actual wording was:
It was resolved to object to a) the request from Hayle Harbour Management Limited for the renewal of the dredging Licence for a period of 5 years and b) any extension of the area dredged.
It was resolved that the Clerk investigates the possibility of closure of the King George V Memorial Walk on 10 Sundays between 11 July 2010 and 12 September 2010 inclusive. |
| 04 March 2010. Wave Hub News. Contractors Dawnus Construction will this week start preparing the site of the new sub-station that will allow electricity generated out to sea to be fed into the National Grid. The six-month project will include the installation of more than £1m of electrical equipment, including a monitoring system for wave energy developers to measure how much power their devices produce.
It follows the completion in February of the first phase of work to drill a 200m duct through sand dunes at Hayle where Wave Hub’s subsea-cable will come ashore. It will be linked to onshore cabling threaded through the duct and connected to the new sub-station.
The single-storey sub-station will occupy part of the former coal-fired power station site at Hayle, and is next to an existing sub-station.
Wave Hub is being funded with £12.5m from the South West RDA, £20m from the European Regional Development Fund Convergence Programme and £9.5m from the UK government.
It is on schedule to be completed by autumn of this year with the first wave devices expected to be deployed in 2011. |
| 03 March 2010. Several well-placed sources have hinted that ING may be given the choice of withdrawing its application for a supermarket on South Quay or face planning officers making a recommendation of 'refusal' to the planning committee. Until official confirmation arrives, this is currently conjecture. I'll confirm the situation as soon as I have further information. |
02 March 2010. Hayle Town Council has been advised that the Sainsbury application for a supermarket at Marsh Lane has been withdrawn.
I received the following email from Sainsbury's consultants:
I thought that it might be of interest to know that Sainsbury's have withdrawn their planning application for Hayle to make some improvements to the scheme, with the intention of resubmitting the plans in a few weeks. We've had quite a few consultation responses and need time to address these before the plans go before the planning committee.
Matt Wooldridge, Senior Consultant, JBP Public Relations
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| 02 March 2010. Thanks to a correction from Wayne Adams, the latest map of the dredging area can be downloaded here. The main change is the addition of dredging in front of Dynamite Quay. |
| 28 February 2010. DREDGING LICENSE RENEWAL. HHML has requested a 5-year (with unlimited renewals) licence. This will come before the Hayle Town Council on Thursday, March 4th. If you want to express an opinion on this, make sure you arrive at the meeting by 7-15pm so that you can have your say in the public participation session. You can download a copy of the papers here. |
28 February 2010. In the 'Plus ça change' department: Ray Wyse passed me a copy of the Cornishman dated 11 October 1984. See it here. It's a bit hard to read but here's what I think it says:
New Supermarket Food Firm Named. Gateway Foodmarkets have been named as the company intending to move into Tekoa's proposed new supermarket at Hayle. The identity of the firm has been revealed amid growing controversy over the scheme. Tekoa is seeking permission to build the supermarket on South Quay and fill in part of Penpol Dock to provide parking and access. Penwith Council has been told that Cignet Construction Ltd. plan to build the store if it is given the go-ahead. Cignet has announced that an agreement has been eached with the harbour owners to purchase that area of the harbour..
Gateway, said Cignet, would also not wish to move onto South Quay unless infilling of Penpol Dock - providing a link with existing shops at Penpol Terrace as well as parking space - took place. Slade's of Foundry also proposes to build a store - of some 25,000 sq. ft. with parking for 167 cars - on its current factory site at South Quay.
Mr. Owen Philp last week called on Tekoa and Slade's to work together to produce a development project which would be of benefit to the town and its residents. |
| 25 February 2010. Today's West Briton confirms the views of councillors and residents in West Cornwall who opposed the unitary council by a huge majority. |
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| 25 February 2010. A fairly serious fire at Pratt's Market led to a significant turnout by the Fire Brigade. I have heard the sad news that Paul Dyer's workshop was seriously damaged. |
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02 February 2010. I have just received the report from CABE dated 22 January. CABE is the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and act as consultants to the government on large projects.
The opening sentence of their summary: We strongly object to this planning application. |
| Read the whole thing here. |
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02 February 2010. The advisers to UNESCO on World Heritage Sites, ICOMOS, has issued a scathing report on the ING proposal for a supermarket on South Quay. They issue a plea for the council to refuse planning permission. Here are some extracts from their conclusions (I have added emphasis and edited. OUV means Outstanding Universal Value): |
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ICOMOS-UK considers that the bulk of the building, and its presumed height, would be an overwhelming intrusion into the harbour landscape, and in effect would visually cut the harbour basin in two north of the viaduct, and lead to a loss of views from the east part of the town across Carnsew Pool and beyond. The flood protection measures required, based on raising on the ground level by 1.85 metres above the height of the existing granite stone quay walls, will also have a considerable negative impact.
Overall, we consider that the complete anonymity of the scheme which shows no local distinctiveness and does not in any way relate to the morphology of Hayle, or respect its strong local character, would have a negative and detrimental impact on the attributes of Hayle that contribute to the overall OUV of the WHS. Its design bears little relationship to the attractive and small scale row of double fronted villa houses with front gardens at Penpol Terrace that characterise the road alongside the current fishing harbour and are a key part of the planned factory town.
Furthermore we consider that the benefits that would be delivered to Hayle in terms of heritage led regeneration would be minimal, and there is no certainty that this scheme would unlock further schemes linked to the previous application that has not yet been given unconditional approval.
The WH status of Hayle, and the enormous assets of its historic cultural landscape that has been given international recognition, should be the starting point and driving force for the regeneration of the overall harbour, in line with the aspirations of the Management Plan.
We did not consider that the first application rose to this challenge, even though it did have as an aim the overall regeneration of the harbour: we consider that this subsequent application has even less grounding as an attempt to optimise WH status and deliver heritage-led regeneration. Indeed, we consider that it could result in being the reverse of heritage-led regeneration and bring into question the overall validity of Hayle as part of the WHS.
Hayle deserves better than this and we urge the Council to REFUSE this application.
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| Read the full report here. |
31 January 2010. The Harbour Master, Richard Ford, has just returned from leave and discovered that the mechanical dredging taking place on the east side of the estuary was not where he expected it to be - and was not helping to keep the channel navigable. Consequently he has halted the mechanical dredging immediately while the situation is considered.
It is likely that mechanical dredging will not restart before the period allowed in the licence expires. This was a difficult decision for the harbour master to take. Thank him if you get the opportunity. |
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| 30 January 2010. There have been a few hiccups for the Wave Hub project recently. Firstly the drill hit rock just before Christmas. The plan appears to be to drill two smaller holes now rather than one larger one necessitating the replacement of the large liner pipe which has been placed on the beach. |
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| Another problem is the high tide and onshore wind that have washed away the fencing around the beach side of the drilling. |
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| 30 January 2010. Dredging has been taking place recently using a digger and dump truck on the east side of Anjou Point. The reason stated was that the weather was too bad for the dredger to go out. Luckily, the intrepid crew of the Taysands were able to venture out into the 1cm high swell today to recommence suction dredging. |
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| 13 January 2010. The ING planning application for a supermarket on South Quay was published in the Cornishman on 31 December 2009. Details are available here. |
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