All aboard for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Slipway
An urgent appeal has gone out to raise funds for Dartmouth’s new public slipway.
A government funding scheme announced at Christmas promises to fund three quarters of the cost if the local community is able to raise the remaining 25 percent. The catch? Pledges must be in by April 8th 2022 for the scheme to get the go-ahead.
Dartmouth Public Slipway Trust has been working on the scheme since 2017. The new slipway on the west side of the River Dart, 30 metres to the south of the existing public slipway on the North Embankment, will be 12 metres wide and 54.5 metres long. A suspended concrete deck will rest on tubular steel piles and feature a manoeuvring area at the head of the slipway. A new floating pontoon 2.5 metres wide and 45 metres long will be installed along the southern side of the new slipway for temporary mooring of marine craft, accessible via a steel walkway.
Named The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Slipway to celebrate Her Majesty’s 70 years of loyal public service, the brand new facility will replace the old slipway next to the Higher Ferry slip. Currently the only public slipway into the River Dart at Dartmouth, access to the narrow ramp has long been a problem with locals and visitors attempting to reverse their cars and trailers down to the water. The task is made harder still by the comings and goings of the ferry, especially on an ebb tide when its cables have sufficient slack to drift downstream, making launching and recovery of vessels from the slipway extremely hazardous. With so many using the slipway, a solution is long overdue: the Dart commercial fishing community, rowing clubs, canoeists, kayakers and paddle boarders all launch and recover from this same crowded ramp, not to mention the RNLI responding to emergency call-outs.
Thanks to its greater size and improved location, the new slipway will significantly improve safety and capacity, irrespective of the state of the tide, keeping traffic away from the Higher Ferry and helping to ease congestion on the main road into Dartmouth. Cars and trailers will no longer have to reverse on the wrong side of the road against the flow of traffic coming from different directions.
Sir Geoffrey Newman, Chairman of the Charitable Trust said, “This is an incredibly important project for Dartmouth. It has the full support of South Hams District Council and the Dart Harbour Authority. Pre-app approval and ecological investigations have all been undertaken, allowing us to submit a full planning application”.
In December, DEFRA announced a £65 million UK Seafood Fund Infrastructure Scheme to improve landing and recovery conditions for commercial fishing vessels. The Trust has carried out a survey of needs and further research which identified the Dart as a significant landing port for fish (and for shellfish in particular), but with very poor infrastructure and transport links. The government grant will provide 75% of the £4.4m cost to build the new slipway.
Sir Geoffrey added “We need to find 25% of the cost or £1.1 million by the close of business on April 8th. The funding scheme is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which will benefit Dartmouth’s well-established fishing industry, commercial users, water sports enthusiasts and the local economy”.
To raise funds before the deadline, Dartmouth Public Slipway Trust is seeking donation pledges. These pledges will not be called upon unless all the funding for the project is in place. To pledge support or for more information, please contact Trustee Ray Bridges by email: g.r.bridges@me.com.