A campaign to gain funding to repair Burnham-On-Sea’s 150-year-old jetty has this week been given a major boost.
Burnham-On-Sea.com reported in January how winter storms had damaged the structure, then, in June, the jetty was controversially excluded from Burnham’s enlarged Conservation Area because officials said it was not classed as a building.
“That decision made it almost impossible to receive English Heritage funding,” Burnham’s Deputy Mayor, Cllr Neville Jones, pictured, told a meeting of the full district council this week.
“The jetty is of great historical importance to Burnham, having been built over 150 years ago,” he said.
“It’s deplorable to see the tarmac crumbling, antique bolts and rivets rusting, and huge granite stone blocks beneath it just splitting up.”
He urged fellow councillors to reconsider the classification of the structure. A vote taken at the meeting saw unanimous backing given to the landmark being included in the town’s new Conservation Area as a building.
Cllr Jones told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “I took a dictionary to this week’s meeting and read out the definition of the word ‘building’, which clearly includes the word ‘structure’ and therefore applies to our jetty.”
The matter is now scheduled to be further discussed at the next Burnham town council meeting in early August.
And an application for hundreds of thousands of pounds of much-needed funding to repair and restore the jetty is then expected to follow later in the year or early 2008.
Cllr Jones confirmed: “I’m not seeking merely protection for the jetty under the Conservation Area, but funding from English Heritage too.”
Many of Burnham’s other landmarks – including the Ritz Cinema and Post Office – were included in the newly enlarged Conservation Plans unveiled in June.
James White, Sedgemoor’s Conservation Officer, who has recently left Sedgemoor District Council after being head-hunted by a city council, told Burnham-On-Sea.com last month: “The jetty was originally included at the request of the town council, but since it could not be classified as a building, it cannot be protected within the proposed conservation area.”
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Burnham-On-Sea jetty removed from conservation plans
