Agenda and minutes

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 05 March 2025.

The minutes of the last meeting held on 5 March 2025 were confirmed and signed.

To disclose any pecuniary, other registerable or non-registrable interest as set out in the adopted Code of Conduct. In making their disclosure councillors are asked to state the agenda item, the nature of the interest and any action they propose to take as part of their declaration.

If required, further advice should be sought from the Monitoring Officer in advance of the meeting.

Richard Tinsley declared that he held a berth in Weymouth marina.

Representatives of town or parish councils and members of the public who live, work, or represent an organisation within the Dorset Council area are welcome to submit either 1 question or 1 statement for each meeting.  You are welcome to attend the meeting in person or via MS Teams to read out your question and to receive the response.   If you submit a statement for the committee this will be circulated to all members of the committee in advance of the meeting as a supplement to the agenda and appended to the minutes for the formal record but will not be read out at the meeting. The first 8 questions and the first 8 statements received from members of the public or organisations for each meeting will be accepted on a first come first served basis in accordance with the deadline set out below.  Further information read Public Participation - Dorset Council 

All submissions must be e-mailed in full to [email protected]

by 8.30am on Friday 06 June 2025.

When submitting your question(s) and/or statement(s) please note that:

• You can submit 1 question or 1 statement.
• a question may include a short pre-amble to set the context.
• It must be a single question and any sub-divided questions will not be permitted.
• Each question will consist of no more than 450 words, and you will be given up to 3 minutes to present your question.
• when submitting a question please indicate who the question is for (e.g., the name of the committee or Portfolio Holder) 
• Include your name, address, and contact details.  Only your name will be published but we may need your other details to contact you about your question or statement in advance of the meeting. 
• questions and statements received in line with the council’s rules for public participation will be published as a supplement to the agenda. 
• all questions, statements and responses will be published in full within the minutes of the meeting.   

There were no public questions.

To consider a verbal report by the Chairman.

The Chair welcomed the two new co-optee members to the committee and noted the knowledge of the maritime industry that they would bring.  Since the last meeting he had attended the opening of the RNLI mural in Weymouth that had been created by a local artist. He also congratulated the Lyme Regis and Bridport Harbour Master on 30 years of working in the harbours.

To note the minutes of the Weymouth, Bridport and Lyme Regis Harbour Consultative Groups.

The Lyme Regis Harbour Consultative Group minutes for the meeting held on 15 May 2025 were presented by Nick Marks, who was representing the group in the absence of the Chair.

The Weymouth Harbour Consultative Group minutes for the meeting held on 21 May 2025 were presented by Tim Day, the Consultative Group Chair.

The committee noted the minutes of the meetings of the Bridport (West Bay), Lyme Regis and Weymouth Harbour Consultative Groups.

To receive updates from the Weymouth and Bridport & Lyme Regis Harbour Masters.

The Harbour Master presented the update for Bridport and Lyme Regis harbours. The statistics for both harbours were provided and it was explained that staff had undertaken training courses in several areas including first aid, health and safety, customer care and council behaviour.

Lyme Regis had been audited in March 2025 and there had been 15 items identified for improvement in the audit. 8 of these had been addressed and the remaining 7 items would be addressed by the end of the year.

In Bridport the Beach Wheelchair scheme had recently installed a new permanent building to store their beach wheelchairs, which replaced the older temporary container and the flare disposal scheme had also been setup.

The Harbour Master noted the incidents and accidents that had occurred since the last meeting, including a trailer that had come off a vehicle, which had then been recovered, a vessel sinking in its mooring, which had since been recovered by Harbour staff and a dinghy nearly colliding with a passenger vessel.

In response to a question the Harbours Manager stated that although the target for the completion of the outstanding audit points was the end of year, the smaller items had already been addressed and the outstanding items included demonstrating compliance more clearly and it was hoped that the majority of these would be dealt with by September. In addition, Lyme Regis had been audited against the new code, which was released after the audit took place.

The Harbour Master also confirmed that users of the marina were required to sign a document stating that their vessel was in seaworthy condition and that it was insured.

The Harbours Manager presented the update for Weymouth Harbour. He provided the statistics for the harbour and noted that the Weymouth Sailing Club pontoon works had been recently completed in March.

Several incidents had occurred since the last meeting, they included vessels with mechanical failure, report of a vessel being navigated by a person under the influence of alcohol, a person jumping into the harbour and a mast collapsing on a vessel. A new streamlined incident reporting process had been implemented across the three harbours, to provide better data and analysis on the incidents that were occurring.

The Weymouth Harbour Revision Order had been submitted to the Marine Management Organisation and public consultation would begin in June.

A letter had been distributed in collaboration with the RNLI to provide harbour users with a pre-season checklist and the CCTV system in the harbour had been updated to provide better coverage of certain areas.

Maintenance works had been carried out over Winter across the harbour and the work on the town bridge had been pushed back to early 2026. The Weymouth Quay Project had fully opened and the old Fish Landing Quay had been closed since March. Although the fuel pontoon had been setup there had been delays in getting it operational due to changes with the vendor for the payment system and further approval was needed from HMRC.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 115.

To provide an engineering update for Weymouth, Bridport and Lyme Regis harbours.

The Service Manger for Flood and Coastal Erosion presented the engineering updates. In Bridport and Lyme Regis the dredging would be undertaken as a single operation and they were currently exploring different techniques to potentially save on costs.

Works to harbour walls A & B were being dealt with as a single project and the Service Manager provided a verbal update noting that at the time of the meeting the permit had been received from the Environment Agency and work had commenced.

In Lyme Regis positive discussions had taken place with Natural England about new dredging techniques. Pre-application advice had been sought about the works for the Lyme Regis Environmental Improvement Scheme Phase 5 and construction was anticipated to start in late 2026 / early 2027.

In Weymouth Harbour inspections had begun in May and were anticipated to be completed by July. The Beach Modelling report was being finalised for the Weymouth Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Scheme Phase 1 and the economic appraisal was also ongoing.

One member stressed the importance of looking at preventative maintenance measures going forward as well as reactive maintenance in an effort to save costs in the future.

The committee noted the update.  

To consider a report from the Weymouth and Lyme Regis and West Bay Harbour Masters.

The Harbour Master presented the end of year budget report for Bridport and Lyme Regis. The main variances of the end of year figures were explained to members for both harbours and this included a significant underspend in dredging, due to a lack of full dredging costs in the 2024/25. In Bridport there had been a transfer to the reserve of £68,672, while Lyme Regis remained funded by Dorset Council.

The Weymouth Harbour end of year budget report was presented by the Harbours Business Manager. The main variances between the projected budget and end of year figures were explained and the detailed figures of the different reserve funds were provided. It was explained that the overall financial picture remained fairly strong in Weymouth harbour.

In response to a question from one member the Harbours Business Manager explained that there was a standard process that was followed when chasing owed payments and if it could not be resolved then it would be passed onto the finance team at Dorset Council.

The committee noted the end of year actuals for Bridport, Lyme Regis and Weymouth harbours for 2024/25.

To consider a report by the Weymouth and Bridport & Lyme Regis Harbour Masters.

The Harbour Master explained that at this stage of the year there were no significant variances of the budget for Bridport and Lyme Regis harbours.

In Weymouth some adjustments had been made for parking revenue due to delays in the repairs to walls F & G. There were no other significant variances to report.

The Committee noted the budget monitoring report for Bridport, Lyme Regis and Weymouth harbours for 2025/26.  

To consider a report from the Harbours Manager.

The Harbours Manager presented the report, which recommended amending the Harbours Consultative Groups Terms of Reference. The proposed changes ensured that meetings could proceed in the absence of a Chair or Vice-Chair and allowed the relevant harbour master to act as Chair for the duration of the meeting. The three consultative groups had been consulted on the proposed changes prior to being brought to the Harbours Advisory Committee.

Proposed by Cllr Williams and seconded by Cllr Bryan.

Decision: That the Harbours Advisory Committee recommend that the Cabinet Member for Place Services approve the amendments to the Harbour Consultative Group Terms of Reference as proposed.

To consider a report from the Harbours Manager.

The Harbours Manager presented the report showing the new incident analysis system that had been implemented across the three harbours. It was explained that this would help to categorise incidents more accurately to allow trends to be extracted from the data entered into the system.

In response to members questions, the Harbours Manager stated that he would provide further in depth feedback to the committee dependent on which areas they would like to explore in more detail.

The committee noted the report.

To consider the Harbours Committee Workplan.

The Harbours Manager presented the forward plan to the committee, he noted that in addition to the usual standing items there would also be the Marine Safety Plan update, the Business Plan update, the Economic Analysis and the Lyme Regis Audit update presented at the September meeting.

The committee noted the forward plan.

To consider any items of business which the Chairman has had prior notification and considers to be urgent pursuant to section 100B (4) b) of the Local Government Act 1972. The reason for the urgency shall be recorded in the minutes.

There were no urgent items.

To move the exclusion of the press and the public for the following item in view of the likely disclosure of exempt information within the meaning of paragraph x of schedule 12 A to the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended).

The public and the press will be asked to leave the meeting whilst the item of business is considered.

There is no scheduled exempt business for this meeting.

There was no exempt business.