Sailing Club spends £10k on dredging of river amidst claims EA failed them

Gibraltar Point Sailing Club, previously known as the Skegness Yacht Club, has been established on the River Steeping since the 1960's.

The subject of the dredging was highlighted last year when the river banks burst its banks flooding Wainfleet and causing devastation for residents.

Andy Dingle, of Gibraltar Point Sailing Club, explained: "The River Steeping flows through Wainfleet to empty into the sea at Gibraltar Point where our club moors our members yachts.

"We work very carefully with Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and pay both Lincolnshire County Council and the Environment Agency (EA) to rent bank side land and the mooring rights on the river.

"Even before the flood tour club had great concerns about the eroding of the river bank at Gibraltar Point, where tons of flood defence rocks had collapsed into the river.

"Despite paying a considerable amount of money to the Environment Agency each year in rents, our concerns that the river was becoming blocked were consistently ignored by the EA.

"Despite the remedial work taken up-stream at Wainfleet, none has been done at all at Gibraltar Point as the banks of river continued to erode quite dramatically.

"The river was filling with rocks collapsing from the bankside to the point were it r was becoming very shallow and unnavigable and our mooring jetties were collapsing and breaking into the river.

"We had been working with the Wainfleet Flood Action Group and local councillors who were reporting back to the Environment Agency but there was still a lack of enthusiasm or interest in any reparatory work at Gibraltar Point.

"This year we as a club took the drastic decision of taking the matter into our own hands, obtaining permissions from Natural England, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and even the Environment Agency themselves, to dredge and repair the river at Gibraltar Point, to ease the flow of water to the sea prior to the winter rains and to repair some of the damage caused to our jetties.

"This work has just been completed at a cost to our club of over £10,000 which we can ill afford to pay out for, especially as this is, in effect paying for work that should have been the Environment Agency's reponsibility and indeed, we pay rent to them for."

The Standard has requested a comment from the Environment Agency.