Eastney Naturists

Campaigning to Save the Beach

18 January 2008 - Executive meeting of Portsmouth City Council

Another report going to the executive meeting on Jan 18th - the report can be read on Portsmouth City Council's website. This report recommends deferring the decision over the SINC land at Fort Cumberland because QinetiQ hasn't given guarantees about public access to Eastney Beach that satisfy the City Solictor.

You can read more about this here, along with some of our concerns about both QinetiQ's proposal and their Supplemental Proposal.

My Deputation:
I would like to ask the executive to approve the recommendation from the City Solicitor to defer the decision over the land at Fort Cumberland Road – it should be noted that the land under discussion is home to a highly protected species and is a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation – this relevant fact seems to have been missed out in reports that have gone before the executive (including this latest one).

At the executive meeting in December 2007, QinetiQ made a “last-minute” offer of granting public access to the beach at Eastney. I understand that yet another last-minute deal has been offered this morning – one that we don’t yet actually know any of the details of!

The last (last minute) offer, along with a supplemental proposal, is now in writing – BUT QinetiQ do seem to have stopped short of guaranteeing public access in a manner that would legally bind future owners of the beach. This is of some concern to the City Solicitor and should be of concern to everyone who wants to see the beach kept open.

Securing a guarantee of public access for the beach is important, although we do still remain opposed to the scheme as a whole. 3 large blocks of flats towering over the SINC and the beach is hardly in keeping with the immediate surrounding area - a far more sympathetic, and preferable, solution would be to return the site to nature.

The recent actions of QinetiQ suggest that our original fears regarding access to the beach were well founded. In September 2007 QinetiQ instructed the Council to remove the Naturist advisory signs from the beach (only one of the signs was on the privatised beach, the other was sited on public land). The Council, in response to these demands, removed both signs. The signs were originally put up after an Eastney Neighbourhood Forum meeting back in Sept 2000 (before QinetiQ took over the site) and had the backing of a number of stakeholders - Council, Police, Eastney residents and interested parties via the Eastney Neighbourhood Forum. I’m not aware that any effort at all was made to inform or consult with these stakeholders before this recent action was taken. This would appear to be a “shot across the bows” of the naturists, and the public, who have quietly and considerately used this beach with no restrictions to access for more than 60 years. This action does rather beg the question: “is this the first step to excluding the public from this privatised beach?” If it isn’t, then re-instating the signs would go a long way towards demonstrating goodwill on the part of QinetiQ and the council.

Guaranteed and legally binding public access to the beach could still and should be tied to the negotiations over the access road.

I would like to ask the executive to defer making any decision over this Nature Conservation land until such time as QinetiQ is able to provide legally binding guarantees of public access to the beach. I would also ask that the executive is not taken in by threats of legal action either – as the report from the City Solicitor makes quite clear that there really is no need to rush through a deal over the SINC land.

The failure to secure public access to this part of Eastney Beach would represent a major loss of amenity both for city residents and visitors to Portsmouth and would be a major embarrassment for this sea-side town and this Council.

Account of the Meeting:
QinetiQ once again made a last minute offer on the morning of the executive meeting. This time the offer was to enclose their previous proposal and supplemental propsal in a "Title Restriction", which means that the beach could not be sold on without the restrictions agreed between QinetiQ and the Council. The City's solicitor stated that this was "watertight" and was a "routine and well understood conveyancing mechanism".

The Leader of the Council, Cllr Vernon-Jackson, asked "is it watertight, yes or no?". To which the City Solicitor answered "Yes".

Cllr Hancock (also the MP for Portsmouth South) asked if this "watertight" solution would protect the beach users from future challenges to this agreement, possibly from residents of the proposed flats not keen on the way the beach was being used. To this the City Solicitor replied that such an objection "would not be likely to succeed". mmmm, that doesn't sound quite so "watertight" after all.

Then Cllr Hancock asked why no-one had suggested that QinetiQ just hand over the beach to the council. He went on to dismiss concerns that this would entail the city taking over the costs of the sea defences and pointed out that the sea defences were the concern of the development, not the beach. The City Solicitor agreed that this was one possible solution.

Cllr Hancock expressed amazement that this solution hadn't been seriously considered before. The meeting then agreed to defer any decision over the access road until the City Solicitor and Council Officers had explored the possibility of taking over the beach from QinetiQ (without taking over the cost and responsibility of the sea defences for the flats) until the next Executive meeting on 29 January 2008.

Having the council take over the beach seems to be not just common sense, but also strikes me as being so much more straightforward than tying a deal up in legalese - "dedicate as access land..." & "title restriction..", etc

During their rather disjointed deputation, QinetiQ decried the efforts of the objectors, claiming that objections to the scheme were denying valuable community benefits to the city. What a Joke! The only benefit being denied was the profit that QinetiQ will make on this windfall site!

I have to give full marks to Cllr Hancock for speaking up on our (& the public's) behalf so robustly - it really was a joy to see him rip into all concerned.

The City Solicitor, Council Officers and QinetiQ will have to get their skates on though, the next Executive meeting is only 7 working days away and if there's to be a report to the Executive best practise is to publicly publish 5 working days before the meeting.