Blue Circle SC Closure Threat

have you considered paying the landlord more for the lease?  One assumes he or she is commercial driven, as most landlords are....  

Many thanks for your replies and suggestions, the membership as well as other stakeholders (RYA/Kent Schools/Sea Cadets etc) have already been mobilised to raise individual objections and the local MP is already aware.  There really are no other non-tidal alternatives in this area so we are hoping Medway Council will reject planning on this basis.

They're unlikely to pay any heed in the process to objections from people not in the local area

Object strongly and loudly. Get as many members as you can to write to the council opposing the planning application. Get as many bodies that hold large events at the club to also write and object.

I don't know if you have sailed at our club in the past or know about us, Blue Circle SC was founded by the cement company in 1956.  We sail and windsurf on a 140 acre lake just inside the sea wall at Cliffe, near Rochester in north Kent.  We are an RYA RTE, regularly host Kent Schools Sailing Association regattas, open meetings and are OnBoard accredited.  It's a perfect amenity for teaching sailing and is well used for this purpose, not only by some of our members who are dinghy instructors, but also by our joint tenants Medway Watersports Trust, who are also an RYA RTE.  Our landlord is Brett Aggregates Ltd.  Bretts have applied to Medway Council for planning permission to in-fill the lake from tunnel arisings that will become available when major infrastructure projects get going in London.  The plan is to extend the Cliffe Pools RSPB Nature Reserve next door and end nearly 60 years of sailing here. At the public exhibition Bretts held in Cliffe earlier in the year, the lake was described as 'a dis-used clay pit' - no mention of an active sailing club was present on site at all.  And in Bretts planning application, you have to look very hard indeed to find any mention that we exist!  I could go on and on about what our members have had to put up with already from this landlord, but I would be grateful if you could register your objection to this planning application.  Please email: planning.representations@medway.gov.uk with 'Planning application MC/14/0818 - Alpha Lake and Chalk Lake, Salt Lane Cliffe' as your reference. You can read Bretts application here: http://publicaccess.medway.gov.uk/WAM/showCaseFile.do?action=show&appType=Planning&appNumber=MC%2F14%2F1630  Thanks for your support, Richard Lambert, Senior Instructor