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Wells Harbour Commissioners (WHC) held their annual public Harbour Users’ meeting at the Maltings on 16th April 2010, chaired by Campbell MacCallum, a Harbour Commissioner. The meeting was well attended by over 60 members of the public and went ahead without our Harbour Master, Robert Smith, who was grounded in Turkey unable to get a flight home due to the ash cloud from the volcanic eruption in Iceland. Deputy Harbour Master, Mick Frary, did an excellent job of standing in, reading out Robert’s report and answering questions.

Charles Ebrill, Chairman WHC, started the meeting by explaining that WHC was set up under an Act of Parliament and is, therefore, responsible to the Government (Dept for Transport) for the running of the port. WHC is a trust port and any money made by the harbour is ploughed back into the harbour for the benefit of stakeholders, being the users of the harbour. The Chairman reported that there was much more information about WHC activities than had been the case in previous years. The Harbour Website had been re-designed and contained a wealth of information including a report on the bi-monthly meetings of the Commissioners (www.wellsharbour.co.uk -- use the WHC Meetings link on the front page). He reminded the meeting that Commissioners are not paid and give their time voluntarily; he also confirmed that there was a vacancy for a Commissioner and urged anyone interested in becoming a Commissioner to contact the Harbour Office. Applications will be considered later in the year.

Campbell MacCallum reported that the format of the meeting was different to previous years in that the public had been requested to send questions in advance. This decision had been made unanimously by the Harbour Users Advisory Committee, a group of 14 Associations representing all users afloat and ashore, following their concerns that the 2009 meeting had been dominated by a single topic and that other attendees had been denied the opportunity of asking a question. The result of this change to format meant that a variety of questions were able to be asked and it still left time at the end of the meeting for other questions from the floor. This format was very successful and we feel democratic and will be the format of future meetings.

The meeting closed at 7.40pm with Campbell MacCallum presenting some flowers to Gwen Woodhouse in recognition for all her hard work over the previous seven years in organising the meetings and for her service to WHC.

Full minutes including the questions and answers raised can be downloaded from WHC reports link on the home page.

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