Ambitious plans to transform Annan Harbour are expected to deliver more than £18m in economic benefits for the community.
A total of £13.1m of funding has been confirmed for the huge regeneration project, however inflation means that there is an additional £2m required to make the harbour dream a reality.
Work is ongoing to progress the plans between Annan Harbour Action Group and Dumfries and Galloway Council, however the extra money needed and the fact that planning consent has still to be granted has resulted in uncertainty floating around.
Annandale South Councillor Richard Brodie has described the grand proposals for Annan Harbour as “exciting” but is looking for more reassurances about them materialising.
Speaking at Annandale and Eskdale area committee last week, Councillor Brodie said: “It’s going to bring nearly £20m of benefit into the local area, and thanks to the council for doing work to support it – as well as for the extra money that was agreed in November/December to take forward the plans to a place where we can actually start it.
“It’s a big project for the region, and it’s very exciting, but I’m just concerned about our capacity to deliver this because there are very tight timescales on the project.
“There seems to be a bit of slippage because we were supposed to be having workshops starting in April, but these have now been put back to July.
“We’ve also got a funding gap that we have to meet because obviously the (UK) government have awarded money, but haven’t taken into consideration inflation.
“What are we doing to address this funding gap?”
Melissa McGarey, council team leader on project delivery, said: “To date, we’ve got £13.1m confirmed funding towards the project, although an iteration of the cost plan was applied in quarter three, which we added an inflationary amount to in order to account for inflation, which came out with a figure of just over £15m.
“However, the project just now doesn’t have planning consent, so for us to move in terms of assembling the rest of the funding package, what we really need is a cost plan that reflects a design with a statutory planning consent.”
Initial designs for the Annan Harbour regeneration project are in the works but things can only move forward once planning consent comes through and all funding is in place.
Annan Harbour Action Group will deliver the Annan Harbour Regeneration Project by redeveloping Collett’s Building to form a visitor hub and community facility, and by revitalising Port Street Quay and the adjacent Minister’s Merse by constructing a footbridge to connect the two and undertake significant site remediation.
Council papers provide before and after aerial shots of what the site could look like.
The papers also state that an economic benefit of £18.1m will be achieved through various factors, including increased visitor spend, social impact, and uplift of the land value.
