Selkie statement

You might have seen some comments about Selkie, we wanted to clarify a few points:

Selkie currently leases the café premises from Hastings Borough Council which includes the main cafe kitchen site, a storeroom, and two additional outside seating areas located on the upper and lower levels of Bottle Alley covered promenade. Selkie wants to extend its premises licence out on to an area of beach in front of the café. The beach is Foreshore Trust land, not Hastings Borough Council land, and commercial activity is not permitted, other than within the areas defined within the Hastings Borough Council Act 1988. This Act enables a small amount of commercial activity, but only within a defined geographical area, delineated in the plans in the Act, to ensure that the objects of the trust are protected. Selkie was advised that tables and chairs could be placed on the beach but to comply with the restrictions in the Act they must remain available for all users of the beach.

Following complaints from the public and other agencies, earlier this month all businesses on the lower promenade were contacted reminding them that they should limit their activity only to the areas for which they have leases and/or premises licences and that access for the public, contractors, and the emergency services must be retained. Information was sent setting out those areas specific to each business and explained that officers would be available to meet and review the situation with businesses and answer any questions. 

On Friday 25 July officers from the licensing and coastal teams went to speak with the business operators and discussed how we can ensure that balance can be maintained. All businesses were given the same information at this visit, that they should not have seating outside of their lease area, and if they did this it would need to be put into a formal agreement in the future, and anything on Foreshore Trust land would not be able to be used solely by commercial customers. Other beachfront businesses have been happy to comply with this request that seating needs to be available to all beach users.

Selkie wishes to extend its premises (and licence) and use its seating for its commercial customers only which would be in breach of the Hastings Borough Council  Act 1988. Other commercial operators allow use of the seating by other users of the beach.

There is some confusion as the council has not required Selkie to use single-use plastic cups. On the contrary, there is a condition on the licence that states that all sales of alcohol for consumption on and off the premises shall be in recyclable containers only. As part of Selkie’s licence application, the licensee himself proposed the condition and this has always been the accepted position.

The premises have bins available for the disposable containers and other rubbish. There is regular monitoring of the beach, ensuring the beach and sea are kept clean to avoid this issue and protect the environment. There have also been issues with broken glass from bottles and so on, which obviously isn’t good on a beach. It would be possible and desirable for Selkie to use reusable plastic cups, plenty of other businesses do this in the town, whereby people pay a small deposit for the reusable cups that they can get back on return.

The Trust is not anti-business. You only have to look at the number of businesses thriving on the seafront. But all food and drink businesses have to comply with the terms of their licensing agreements wherever they are across the town.

It is not the council’s intention to impose unnecessary restrictions on business. The council wants our seafront to continue to thrive as demonstrated by the efforts of its officers, continuing to work with the seafront businesses to resolve any issues and strike the necessary balance between the objects of the Trust and the need to support local businesses and tourism while managing safe public access (taking into account the overriding restrictions contained in the Hastings Borough Council Act 1988). This states ‘It has a duty to protect the foreshore “to hold and maintain the Trust land for the common use, benefit and enjoyment of all Her Majesty’s subjects and of the public for the time being forever.”