Councillors vote to take over café on Weymouth Beach

A café which has been on Weymouth Beach for 14 years is to be taken over by the town council.

Councillors voted last night to replace Aunty Vi's near Brunswick Terrace with another catering service run by the local authority.

That's despite a petition online to save the café which was signed by more than 1,500 people.

The current proprietor, Peter Townsend, has a 10-year lease from the Town Council at the unit, but that comes to an end in March next year and the lease doesn't have any provision for extensions.

He claims he only found out about the plans to build a council-run service there a week ago.

It will cost the Town Council £57,785 to purchase and fit out a catering kiosk on the site, but a report to councillors says it will extend the council's ability to generate income.

Peter Townsend said:

"What's come out of the blue is their very underhand way of putting something together to take over my business."

He claims Weymouth Town Council have been working on the plans for months.

"It's been in the making for months now and I'm the last person to know.

"It's quite unbelieveable that this was all going on behind the scenes and I'm the last man to find out."

In a statement, Weymouth Town Council said:

"At a meeting of the Full Council of Weymouth Town Council on 13th October councillors, considered a report on the future of the council’s catering site on Brunswick Terrace.

"As a result, councillors have agreed that the council will directly operate its own catering kiosk on the site from Spring 2021. This is part of the council’s efforts to generate more income from commercial activities and thereby help to generate funds that can be used to support other public services."

In a statement to Greatest Hits Radio Dorset, a spokesperson for Weymouth Town Council said earlier this week:

"The 10-year lease for the Brunswick catering site expires on 31st March 2021. The tenant knew that the lease would expire after 10 years when they signed it in 2011. There are no provisions for an extension to the lease.

"Given that the lease comes to an end in March 2021, the council had to consider future options for the site and has been doing so for some months. This is best practice.

"Recent government guidance has indicated that councils might be able to justify an extension or modification of contracts/leases if they are faced by unforeseeable circumstances, such as staff sickness due to Covid or staff efforts being diverted to Covid-related procurement activities.

"No such circumstances currently exist in the town council and, therefore, no extension can be justified."

But, some local businesses are very upset about the plans, even though the lease is finished and the site belongs to the council.

Craig Oakes is the Chair of Weymouth Chamber of Commerce. He said:

"I've seen anger amongst a lot of businesses. Pete has a lot of support.

"The position he's been in for the last 14 years... he's made a lot of friends and relationships with other businesses in the area and a lot of them are very angered to see that essentially, from their eyes, somebody's business has been taken away from them. I'm not saying that's the case and the lease side of things is in place, but you know that's their feeling.

"All we can really say is that what we normally do is consider the situation, not rush into things. The tender is up until March, there's no need to make a decision that quickly and rather than rushing through to a council meeting in that respect, speak to the owner some more and just see if anything can be sorted out. Possibly some forbearance, especially at this time. That's the situation we wanted to have rather than it being rushed through in this situation."