Confusion Over Concord Beach Fund Raising

THE CONCORD POOL issue seems set to dominate the local press this winter as the Echo prematurely announced, on 13th November, that Canvey Island Town Council (CITC) had saved it from destruction. As usual, the paper gave voice to the Canvey Island Independent Party’s posturing over the issue - hoping to put pressure on Castle Point Borough Council (CPBC) to remove the condition that the Town Council also take over responsibility for the pool’s beach area.

Having placed itself in a dubious financial position and faced with the need to increase resident contributions, while all other Councils seek to reduce their costs, CITC is currently doing everything it can to save face over its public promises regarding the Concord Pool. But just how it can maintain that particular asset without the right to have a labour force or its materials access it – and be obliged to restore the beach area to a suitable pristine condition afterwards – is anyone’s guess.

It seems that town councillors are trying to create a situation in which they can refuse to take the pool over – and pass the blame onto CPBC for insisting upon ‘impossible conditions;’ but it is a corner into which they have painted themselves.

Meanwhile, it appears that the CIIP’s second front (in the shape of Colin Letchford and Lea Swann) have to decided to set-up shop on their own. On the back of the Echo’s announcement, it seems that the two have decided to capitalise on the Concord Cafe’s apparent good fortune and use the public’s generous contributions to further improve the beach area surrounding the pool and its refreshment facilities.

In today’s online Echo, Letchford is reported as trying to raise £10,000 for the Friends of Concord Beach fund – in order to provide on beach shower facilities like neighbouring Southend and Leigh.

The Echo article, to which no reporter has given their name, is a little confusing; because it names Letchford as the Friends of Concord Beach fund’s chairman – and states that it was set-up by residents. But the fact is that Letchford heads his own fund, purportedly set-up to contribute money towards the pool’s repairs, whereas it is none other than Lea Swann, joint owner of the Concord Cafe with her sister, that heads and recently set-up the Friends of Concord Beach – to which the proceeds of Letchford’s fund were to be transferred if they were not needed.

Canvey Island Town Councillors, it is understood, are somewhat dismayed at the pair’s antics. Letchford had led them to believe that his own fund would have been available to pay for pool repairs; and Lee’s fund would be there to prop-up its maintenance. But now it seems that both funds are to be combined and used to build shower facilities on the very beach area for which the TC is so desperate to avoid taking responsibility.

Unfortunately, since neither fund has apparently been established under charitable status or explicitly defined objectives, the TC finds itself unable to complain about this sudden loss of anticipated financial assistance…