Gavin Atkin's weblog for the sort of people who like looking inside boat sheds. It's about old boats, traditional boats, boat building, restoration, the sea and the North Kent Coast
This is what we want to see at the top end of Faversham Creek – a thriving busy area of water, workshops and quayside that preserves and is in keeping with the history and spirit of the place. This is where barges, smacks and smaller boats, boat building and boat maintenance belong, and where they could add to the real interest of the town.
I hope it happens.
The Faversham Creek Trust, whose plan this is deserve our support. Read more and consider joining them here.
This is what all the fuss is about – this is Faversham Creek, and this is the area they want to turn over to housing and other marine-unfriendly businesses such as restaurants. As I’m sure many will immediately see, there’s already quite enough housing.
The white building in the photo above, for example, is Baltic House. People are now suggesting it should be a wine bar, with flats above for the bar staff. The application’s here, if you would like to read it and consider making an objection – a key concern is that an approval for an application that includes staff sleeping on the first floor will set a precedent that will open the way to more applications for further housing developments.
Just a short while ago, this quay was a mass of double-moored sailing barges, but this is how it’s been for a couple of years now.
The New Britannic, by the way, is a Dunkirk Little Ship that lives locally – her owner told me she’d just been on a trip up the Thames on Dunkirk business – hence the bunting.
But here’s the appeal. The folks at the Faversham Creek Trust want to hear from people in other countries who would like to express their support for efforts to prevent the Creek being strangled by the wrong kind of development. If you think you can help – an email would be great – please visit the Trust website and write to their contact email address.
While you’re there, take a moment to read some of the Trust’s excellent weblog explaining its members’ points of view about the Creek, and the organisation’s work training boatbuilders and so on.
Thanks!
 
The Faversham Creek Trust has been given this model to auction for fundraising purposes – and they would like to know more about it. The drawing shows the dimensions.
Can anyone help? Certainly if the full-sized version was ever built, it would certainly have been an impressive boat. Is it post-WWII or pre-war? And check out that wishbone high in the rigging!
I have a dim recollection that the canoiest and yacht designer Frederick Fenger invented the wishbone schooner and that designer, builder, racing helmsman and pop starn Uffa Fox wrote about them – so I have a sneaking feeling this may be one of his designs. Please email  any information to me at gmatkin@gmail.com and I will pass it on the the Trust. Of course, I will also let readers know when the auction is to be held.
I should add that we’re nearly on the deadline (28th June) for submitting views about the Faversham Creek Neighbourhood Plan.
The questionnaire for this can be completed online or via the Faversham Creek Neighbourhood plan website.
It takes some minutes and there are one or two questions that will likely garner answers that could be misinterpreted, but it’s still important and worthwhile to fill this thing in. Â There’s no requirement to answer every question, and you can add comments, for example if you do not think that the right questions have been asked.
PS Historian and verteran campaigner for Faversham’s heritage Arthur Percival has written his own considered and clear submission to the Neighbourhood Plan steering group. Read it here.