Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy to expand
Planning permission's been given for an 'innovation centre'
An extension of the National Sailing Centre at Portland has been agreed – with the building of a ‘world-class performance and innovation centre’ alongside the existing Sailing Academy.
The Royal Yachting Association application, which initially met with some opposition, has been approved by Dorset Council.
Portland Town Council claimed the new centre could be in direct competition with the existing facilities, take up valuable space for yacht and dinghy storage and reduce visitor and campervan parking, but later dropped its opposition.
Town councillors also said the proposed three-storey building would be inappropriate for the site asking instead for smaller units.
Opposition had also come from a sailing support business close to the Academy, which argued that the site was inappropriate:
“The planning document provided by the applicant refers to the new RYA building location as being adjacent to the current Sailing Academy. This is highly misleading, the location for the proposed building is very much inside the grounds of the Academy and indeed on land that is an integral part of the infrastructure of the Academy.”
Shock Sailing said that the new centre is likely to result in 60 fewer boats being stored there – reducing the opportunities for maintenance work and other goods and services as well as reducing the available space to host large-scale sailing events.
The proposals attracted many supporters, both locally and from sailors across the country who train and sail in Portland Harbour, dozens of them writing to back the plans.
David Griffith, chair of the board of directors for the Sailing Academy, in response to the objections, said the proposed new centre would not compete with the WPNSA and believes that if there is any impact on local businesses it would be minimal – and could lead to an increase in demand for specialist marine suppliers.
Mr Griffith said the Academy is satisfied the new use of some of the land would not impact the ability to host events such as World Championships.
The RYA says the proposed new centre would bring together their elite training technical and performance units under one roof, “providing state of the art, purpose-built facilities in a new holistic Performance and Innovation Centre to enable structured and informal communication and collaboration between departments.”
Its current Technical and Performance Units occupy two separate industrial units in leased premises at the end of Hamm Beach Road beyond Portland Marina.
Said a Dorset planning case officer report recommending the plans be approved: “the relocation of the technical and performance teams would provide them with a ‘world-class’ training facility, and in terms of catchment, the building is sited appropriately owing to its need to provide access to the water and in recognition of the specialism of the sport.”
The officer says the design of the building would not look out of place, in design of scale, with others in the area: “The contemporary style of the building would sit comfortably with the character of the area which is influenced by other buildings of modern design, including both the Sailing Academy and Osprey Quay,” said the report.