Another popular business is at risk of relocation after a council 'review'
I was contacted yesterday by Fred Davies, the owner of the ice cream and hot food business on the picnic area in Blackhall Rocks, who is concerned about the possibility of losing his license to trade. His concerns came about after he received the following email from the council in response to his earlier query about renewing his licence:
We write to advise that there is currently a review of catering concessions on Durham County Council owned land. Once this review is concluded, there will be a system in place which will enable traders to register their interest and bid for a location. We hope to be able to provide further information as soon as practically possible. Once we have further information to provide, we will forward this to you.
As an alternative, have you considered other land to trade from such as land that is not owned by Durham County Council? We would remind you that you will need to obtain landowner's consent from the relevant landowner.
Corporate Property and Land provide landowner's consent for Durham County Council as landowner. Street trading licences/consent is not landowner's consent.
We cannot provide landowner's consent at Blackhall Rocks at present.
We trust this is of assistance to you, however, should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
My primary concern is of course for Fred and his business and his customers, but I also have real concerns that his current predicament is reminiscent of similar developments last year at nearby Crimdon where a couple of very popular traders were forced off site by the authorities without any reasonable or rational justification.
Please see articles dated Friday 30 July 2021: https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2021/07/campaign-to-keep-traders-at-crimdon.html and Sunday 12 September 2021 https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2021/09/traders-at-blackhall-rocks-and-crimdon.html for background details.
The council’s latest ‘review’ gives the impression that they are for some unknown reason determined to drive respected and popular trade away from prime tourist and visitor sites along the Durham coast and in other popular locations throughout the county. So in order to get to the bottom of these latest developments I've been in touch with the relevant departments at county hall to try to find out exactly who is running this latest “review”, on what basis it is being undertaken and also to ask what the council hopes to gain from persistently driving traders away from popular and busy locations.
For my part I think Fred provides an excellent service for local residents and visitors to our community - not just in terms of his business but also in regularly cleaning up the picnic area and at the same time keeping it occupied and thereby deterring anti-social behaviour and vehicle break-ins which were once commonplace at this location.
I'll update on developments as soon as I have a complete response from the council. In the meantime Stacey and I will continue to do everything we can to help our local businesses when they face unfair eviction from popular visitor sites in our part of the county.
