HC Deb 30 June 1969 vol 786 cc197-208

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

11. 28 p.m.

Mr. Henry Clark (Antrim, North)

The north-east coast of Ireland, where my constituency is situated, faces Scotland across the narrowest part of the Irish Sea. It is an unfortunate fact of geography that in the whole 100-mile stretch of this coast, from Belfast to Londonderry, there is only one natural harbour, only one harbour which gives any facility for deep-water berths for boats much larger than from 10 to 15 tons.

There are a couple of artificial harbours which give only crowded space for small boats. The one natural harbour, which is the subject of which I wish to speak, is Lough Larne. Lough Larne and, more particularly, Curran Point, the sickle shaped spit which half closes the mouth of the Lough, provides very valuable and historic anchorage. As this is the only natural harbour in 100 miles of coast. Curran Point, at Lough Larne, has for generations been of great strategic and commercial importance.

At no time have Lough Larne and the Curran been more important than in the past 25 years. Ever since William Cheyne founded Larne Harbour, more than 100 years ago, the harbour company has been a go-ahead and enterprising firm, and the country owes a great deal to it. Under its present board, and particularly the management of the late Davy Logan, the harbour has gone from strength to strength. In 1949, it became the base for Colonel Bustard's early experiments in roll-on roll-off ferries and container services. As the Minister knows, that enterprise of Colonel Bustard's has grown into a large part of the Transport Holding Company.

Larne Harbour has grown during those 25 years, since the war, at a quite phenomenal rate. In 1947, the harbour dealt with barely 1 per cent. of the traffic to and from Northern Ireland. Today, it deals with about 37 per cent. Larne has become the second largest harbour in Northern Ireland and, from dealing with £2½ million of goods, today it deals with about £370 million worth. It is a great success story, and everyone in County Antrim is proud of it.

The length of deep-water berths and quays has been increased on a number of occasions, and several times permission has been granted by the Board of Trade for navigable water to be reclaimed so that the storage areas and parking bays can be provided which are so essential to the handling of containers; and Larne probably knows more about handling containers than any other port in the world.

Unfortunately, members of the Larne Harbour Company are not the only people to have an interest in the Curran Point. When it was heard that the Board of Trade was to grant permission yet again for Larne Harbour Board to reclaim a large area of 6½ acres of sea, it was clear to anyone who knew the area or who looked at a map of the area that the whole nature of Curran Point was about to be changed.

The other interested parties on the Curran must be spelt out carefully. For generations, the Curran Point has been a favourite area for retired sea captains to build their houses, and Larne has produced a whole race of famous seamen. Recently, I sent the Board of Trade a petition signed by 170 residents of the area, and there can be no doubt that the extension of Larne Harbour which turns an attractive small bay into an extraordinarily ugly parking space for containers is reducing considerably the value of those private houses. Under the law, they can receive no compensation.

At the tip of Curran Point, the Northern Ireland Electricity Board has a site of six or seven acres. On it, one of the first generating stations in Northern Ireland was built. Today, though the generating station has gone, the electricity board has a storage area and a switching and transforming station there.

In addition to the harbour board, the residents and the electricity board, there are two sailing clubs. The Larne Rowing and Sailing Club is based on land which is owned by the harbour and leased on a year-to-year basis. Then there is the East Antrim Boat Club, which purchased a small disused shipyard in 1949 that the harbour could well have bought in 1949 had it wanted it.

The sailing clubs present another success story. They have large memberships, particularly large cadet memberships. They have very successful fleets of sailing dinghies, and increasing numbers of cruising boats and ocean racers. They provide on Curran Point the largest single slipway available to yachts in Northern Ireland, and they have facilities for hundreds and, in future, perhaps thousands of people to take part in water sports. Anyone who knows the County Antrim coast, and has sailed up and down it as often as I have, knows that nowhere else on the coast could one place the facilities of Curran Point and Larne without huge expense.

Just as there are several parties concerned with Curran Point and Larne, so there are several planning authorities. Larne Harbour Company itself is the planning authority for the dock and quay area. Larne Borough Council is responsible for the area outside the quays and docks. The Ministry of Development of Northern Ireland is responsible for the Belfast area plan, in which Larne is included, and it is responsible equally for the revision of that plan and for the special area plan for East Antrim, on which consultants have been working for the last few months. For good measure, the Crown Commissioners own the foreshore, and the Board of Trade, as we have discovered, is responsible for the navigation.

Over a year ago I raised with the Board of Trade the question of the navigation and the possibility of further filling in and reclamation of Larne Harbour. Unfortunately, the Board of Trade did not seem to be able to find the reference of its correspondence with the Larne Harbour Company and the yacht clubs in Larne, and the matter went no further. Just what happened to the letters in the Board of Trade, I do not know, but it is getting a reputation for delay and prevarication.

Not having heard from the Board of Trade, I assumed that no action was being taken. I was surprised when, early in April, I received a letter from the East Antrim Boat Club enclosing a copy of a letter from the marine division of the Board of Trade saying that permission had been granted to the Larne Harbour Company to fill in stage one, which is 6½ acres. Since I had first taken up the question there had been some amendment. The Royal Sailing Association and the Northern Ireland Council for Youth and Physical Recreation had made representations, and slight adjustments had been made in the plans for filling in.

When I wrote to the Board of Trade, in April this year it again seemed to take an inordinate length of time to discover what was happening. It took repeated telephone calls to the Minister's private secretary, and only just before the Whitsun Recess, when filling in had been going on for six weeks, I received a letter from the Minister in which he maintained that the Board of Trade's responsibility was purely for navigation and that the permission granted did not mean permission for the harbour board to continue to fill in.

It is possible that the Board of Trade observed the letter of the law when it granted permission to the Larne Harbour Company. But what discussions did the Board of Trade have with any of the planning authorities? What discussions did it have with the householders, who were eventually forced to send a petition through me? What discussions did it have with the other interested parties, such as the Northern Ireland Electricity Board, which is interested in Curran Point?

There is no doubt that the Board of Trade's decision to allow the filling in of 6½ acres of sea pre-empts any other planning decisions, and certainly if stage three and stage four, as shown in the charts, are proceeded with there will be no hope of preserving the amenity value of Curran Point.

I ask the Minister to give an assurance that the filling in of stage one will be brought to an end very shortly. I also ask for an assurance that he will not give permission for Larne Harbour Company to proceed with any further stage of reclamation in Lough Larne until the whole question has been gone into very carefully with the appropriate planning authorities, and better still, until the plan provides both for the Larne Harbour Company and the amenities of the householders now on Curran Point.

I need hardly remind the Minister that in a similar plan to extend the Liverpool docks and harbours a private Act of Parliament was necessary, and the householders nearby were assured that their houses would be bought, if necessary at pre-development rates.

Larne Harbour must have priority—it is a vital development for Northern Ireland—but must not have absolute priority. The interests of others must be taken into consideration. The problem can be solved. I believe that it can be if it is gone into carefully. The land now held by the Northern Ireland Electricity Board could be taken over. The electricity board is under-utilising a very valuable site, and its buildings are an eyesore. On Curran Point splendid amenities for water sports can be provided with good planning and we can at the same time have a bigger Larne Harbour than before.

I believe that the Board of Trade, while observing the letter of the law, has been negligent in this case in not considering the best interests of all the people concerned. The mere fact that the constitution of Northern Ireland gives jurisdiction only to the water edge leaves a loophole which the Board of Trade, I think without proper care, has taken and has prejudiced very valuable amenity rights which cannot be replaced elsewhere on the County Antrim coast.

11.40 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. William Rodgers)

I am gateful to the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. Henry Clark) for raising this question, as it gives me an opportunity to tell him and the House just what are the Board of Trade's responsibilities—and they are limited—in connection with works in tidal waters.

I am sorry if the hon. Member feels that his concern with the matter has not been properly and rapidly dealt with. I see that he wrote a letter to the Board which was received on 1st May, to which the Board replied on 21st May. I know that he may feel that the delay was longer than necessary, but I hope that he will understand that, because of its limited responsibilities, inquiries were necessary which involved some researches which I would think reasonably justify a lapse of this time. Certainly I believe so on the basis of the information available to me, whereas if the hon. Member feels there was any discourtesy, this was not intended. As far as I can judge, there was no unreasonable delay in dealing with his problem.

The Marine Department of the Board of Trade is responsible for the safety of navigation and also for protecting the public right of navigation in tidal waters. I think that we should get this clear. As a result of these responsibilities, it is necessary for the consent of the Board to be obtained to the construction of works and to the deposit of materials below the high-water mark of ordinary spring tides, unless statutory powers are obtained from Parliament. This requirement goes back at least to the early part of the last century.

In considering applications, our statutory concern is with obstruction or danger to navigation, and only with these matters, not with matters of planning or general amenity, however important they may be—and I should not dispute that they are important in this case, as in others.

I should like to stress this now as there appears to have been some confusion about the position reflected in the hon. Gentleman's remarks. I appreciate his concern and I am anxious to indicate the necessary limit of it from the Board's point of view.

The Board of Trade is concerned only with the interests of navigation and our consent does no more than give the applicant the "all clear" on the navigational aspect of his application. It does not give him any powers to carry out the works, nor does it override the need to obtain planning permission where this is required.

Mr. Henry Clark

Surely the Minister is speaking as if this was Great Britain, not Northern Ireland. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland reaches only to the low-tide mark, where the Board's powers begin. There can be no application of planning by the Northern Ireland Government in the area. Therefore, the Minister is the only authority, and, by granting permission, he is taking the powers of a planning authority.

Mr. Rodgers

With respect, the hon. Member has not quite got it right. I hope that I will partly answer his question in what I have to say. I am trying to indicate where our area of responsibility begins and ends. In the proper fulfilment of our obligations and responsibilities we are bound to fall short of the area with which the hon. Gentleman said that he was principally concerned.

At one stage the hon. Member referred to a total plan for the area. I am trying to make clear that we are not responsible, and cannot be under our powers, for a total plan for the area. Although the hon. Member might wish us to go wider than the letter of the law, given the position, we must carry out our responsibilities as fairly as we can. We cannot depart from what is statutorily given to us to infringe upon the responsibility of others.

As the hon. Gentleman has implied, in Great Britain planning matters are, of course, the responsibility of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. But in Northern Ireland they are the responsibility of the Minister of Development. I understand that if anyone wishes to appeal against a planning decision made in Northern Ireland by a borough or county council they can appeal to the Minister of Development. In any case, planning is the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Parliament and not of Ministers in Westminster. Whatever the hon. Member or I might say, this constitutional relationship cannot be changed.

To return to the functions of the Board of Trade, in considering applications for consent to works in tidal waters we consult all those whom we think have an interest from a navigation point of view, and in many cases we require proposals to be advertised. If we consider that we require more information, we can hold a local inquiry. The hon. Member said that an attractive small bay was to be turned into an extraordinarily ugly parking place for containers. This is not essentially a matter for the Board of Trade, because our responsibility is limited to the navigational aspects.

May I turn now to the specific case which the hon. Member has raised tonight relating to an application from Larne Harbour Ltd. to reclaim part of Lame Harbour. This application represents in fact a further stage in a process of reclamation of the harbour which has been going on since 1961 in order to expand the facilities for handling traffic at Lame. As the hon. Member says, developments in recent years have been marked by progress and growth in this respect.

Larne Harbour Ltd. is not a statutory harbour authority, but it handles more traffic and goods than any other harbour authority in Northern Ireland, except Belfast. The British Railways Ferry Service operates four services a day and the harbour authority handles a considerable and growing amount of container traffic, which perhaps creates the problem as the hon. Member now sees it. The area which the company now wishes to infill will be used to provide a hard standing and parking area for container service vehicles using the port and will provide an additional quay along the seaward side of the area.

We required the proposals to be advertised, and objections were received. I am sorry if the hon. Member was not aware of this fact. These led to revisions of the proposals which were again, in their revised form, advertised—I am now talking about a period extending over three or four years—following a meeting between representatives of the Board of Trade, the Royal Yachting Association, and the applicants. The area which is now proposed to be reclaimed has been slightly reduced—I think the hon. Member himself said there had been modifications—and under the new arrangements the East Antrim Boat Club and the Larne Rowing and Sailing Clubs—the two clubs with which the hon. Member was concerned—will continue to have access to their slipways.

To make an early start on the reclamation and provide some additional space for the container traffic, Larne Harbour Authority has now split its proposals into the three stages which I think the hon. Member has in mind and we have been able to give consent to Stage I, as we are satisfied that this does not interfere unreasonably with navigation. I must again stress that this consent does not of itself give the company power to reclaim the area concerned, but merely states that, if I may quote the somewhat antique wording which is used on these occasions— so far as the interests of navigation are concerned and without prejudice to the estate and interest of Her Majesty the Queen, or other the Owner or Owners in the soil of the tidal lands to be interfered with, hereby consent to the reclamation by Larne Harbour Authority of 6.7 acres of foreshore below high water mark of ordinary spring tides at Lame in connection with Stage I of the proposed extension of Larne Harbour as shown by the plan annexed hereto". It will be noted that the phrase— so far as the interests of navigation are concerned"— is the preliminary to the consent we have given. This is the limit of our responsibility.

Again speaking within our own responsibilities, I can say that Larne Harbour Authority has been very co-operative over the navigation needs of the Lame Rowing and Sailing Clubs—at least, I have been told so—and has agreed that they may have the use of the extreme southern end of the proposed quay for the accommodation of visiting yachts and for other purposes.

Discussions are continuing concerning the loss of mooring space and proposals for alternative mooring areas. Strictly speaking, I understand that the provision of moorings for a vessel should not be regarded as part of the public right of navigation. The consent of the owner or lessee of the foreshore or bed of the sea is required before anyone can lay either a permanent or a temporary mooring, so that we do not need to take objections relating to moorings into account when considering applications. Nevertheless, the Board's practice is to attempt to resolve as far as possible any difficulties relating to mooring by negotiation with the parties concerned.

It has been suggested—I think that the hon. Member implied this—that the proposals of Larne Harbour Authority will lead to the disappearance of the only safe all-weather anchorage for yachts between Carrick Fergus, 20 miles south-west of Larne, and Port Rush, 60 miles to the north. I do not think that this is correct. There are, I gather—although I would defer to the hon. Gentleman and his experience—places within Lough Larne, in particular to the south-west of Curran Point, where a safe anchorage can be found.

I hope that I have been able to explain to the hon. Member the basis on which the Board of Trade considers applications relating to works in tidal waters, and to satisfy him that in this particular case we have given full and fair consideration to all the navigational aspects of the matter, those being, as I have said, the only aspects of concern to the Board of Trade.

Mr. Henry Clark

Could the Minister tell me what discussions he has had with the Minister of Development in Northern Ireland, who is responsible particularly for the Belfast area plan and the East Antrim special plan, and what discussions he has had with Larne Borough Council? If he has had no discussions, would he not agree that he should do so, as the Larne Borough Council's responsibility and the responsibility of the Minister of Development are directly adjacent to this in-filling?

Mr. Rodgers

I personally have had no discussion with the Minister of Development, but, as I have said, discussions about this development have extended over a period of three years. We have always advertised the proposals, and after the first occasion they were modified. There has been very full opportunity for all those involved to make their views known.

But I must say again, although it is not for me to disagree with the hon. Member's argument, that many planning authorities are involved. All I can say is that our concern is for the navigational aspects. As far as that is concerned, we have gone through all the procedures, and I am not aware that there has been any objection raised with us by the Minister of Development in Northern Ireland. If this is not the case, I will let the hon. Member know.

As I say, our responsibility has been limited. I must ask the hon. Member not to expect me to get involved in the total plan which he says may be required in the area—I am not discounting it, but it is not my province—nor ask me to abandon the letter of the law for a more liberal interpretation of responsibilities which would impinge upon the proper responsibility of the Parliament of Northern Ireland and would not be, for that reason, ultimately acceptable by this House.

The hon. Member has performed a useful function in raising this matter, from everybody's point of view. I can certainly assure him that our consent to stage I of the scheme is entirely without prejudice to our consideration of the later stages of the schemes—in other words, stages II and III. In examining these suggestions, we shall, of course, take into account what he has said tonight.

As to the planning matters that he has raised, I hope that the hon. Member will forgive me if I say that as they are outside my province, they are matters which he may wish to discuss with the Minister of Development of the Northern Ireland Government because it would be improper for me to trespass on to his ground, just as I am sure he would not wish to limit our own rôle, restricted though it may be, for entirely navigational matters.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Twelve o'clock.

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