Wyche Marine - treasure trove house

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Garry R

Wyche Marine - treasure trove house

Post by Garry R »

I visited Wyche Marine in the summer - a veritable tresure trove of old boat fittings and worth a visit if you are in the area. I had heard it was under thresat but looks as if has been saved. Dick Wyche of Wyche and Coppock worked latterly from here. This appeared in Classic Boat


Boatyard saved

DIY boat-owners celebrated after a change-of-use planning application for Wyche Marine in Chichester Harbour was turned down by councillors, writes Dan Houston. But Lt Col John Davis, harbourmaster and manager of the Harbour Conservancy, who put in the application, is left wondering where his educational staff will be based when their agreement to use nearby Dell Quay Sailing Club runs out next spring. Wyche Marine has been a boatyard since at least the mid-19th-century and Ashley Hatton, who runs a dinghy sailing school attached to the place, made a passionate appeal to councillors to stop the yard going the way of others, like Coombes boatyard, which shut eight
years ago for housing development (still pending). It's one of very few spots in the harbour suitable for wooden boat maintenance and repair,? he said. It is also the last boatyard providing services to yacht owners on a budget. Col Davis was left nonplussed by the scale of the protest. The
conservancy runs the designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and hosts school visits for up to 9,000 children a year. He had hoped to convert the boatyard shed into a small classroom and staff base.
We proposed to take over the yard and run the hard, mud and
swinging moorings as part of the conservancy, as we do elsewhere.
Any business could easily be handled by Dell Quay. There were 56
objections. We are in a tight spot now ? we need a base for our
staff and it?s very hard to get a building.?
Dan Houston, Classic Boat, 17 September 2007
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