1999

1999

1999 saw a massive project for Whitby & for Yorkshire Water, which would see a treatment plant built and set up at Broomfield Farm off the A171 near the industrial estate, and a pumping station set up at Dock End in the Town Centre. Works on installing the new sewerage system for Whitby, to replace the Victorian one was getting underway, with the main part of work beginning, following on from test drilling in the previous year. The year also saw the start of a project to protect Runswick Bay from the sea, when huge boulders were brought in, to replace the very precarious sea wall. Woodlands Nursing Home near Sleights was also closed down, soon to become luxury apartments.

January saw the demolition of Harbour Port Services Offices, which would be replaced at the other end of Endeavour Wharf, & work began sheet piling the wharf & excavating works were also on-going, by contractors Morrison Construction. Archaeologists worked alongside the construction team to record anything they might find. New Quay Road was closed from the middle of January until just before Easter, and, after New Quay Road was re-opened, Bridge Street & the Northern end of Church Street, as well as St. Anne's Staith were also closed. Whilst New Quay Road was closed, access to Pier Road was only available by the temporary removal of the one-way enforcement on Khyber Pass. Shafts were also being sunk for the new sewer over the next few months, the first being in Bagdale. During the works also, a temporary mini roundabout was created near the old Potato Market to allow vehicles to make a 'U' turn, while the Northern end of Church Street was closed. The Scoresby Statue was temporarily moved from Dock End to just outside the Railway Station. Bus services to the East side ran via Bagdale and a car sharing service was running between Church Street & Abbotts Road, whilst access around the town was limited.

Left to Right: Piling work at Dock End; More work at Dock End; Dock End as it was prior to the work with the Harbour Port Services building

The Driving Test centre in Back St. Hilda's Terrace also cancelled its lessons & tests as a result of the works. The centre said it was forced into taking the decision, but Yorkshire Water said it was not the case, and instead it was simply because of all the disruption to the roads. Work began on replacing cracked pavements on Flowergate with paving slabs. Starting at the junction with Brunswick Street, work progressed down the South side of the street and round the bottom and back up past what was, somerfield. At R.A.F. Fylingdales a new high security, electric fence was installed. It did not interfere with the radar, as tests were carried out prior to installing it, moving the fence closer and closer to the radar.

In February, Shelter charity shop moved into the former Ladbrokes shop on Baxtergate, making them the 9th charity shop in the town. Whitby's Coliseum was reduced to no more than an empty shell at this time, with phase one of the works being complete. A major landslip occurred at Loftus Bank, leaving only half of the road. A one-way system had to be enforced and a weight restriction put in place, meaning buses or heavy goods vehicles couldn't use the bank.

A shaft on Church Street car park was sunk for Yorkshire Water's sewer works & also works were on-going on an existing sewer diversion in St. Anne's Staith. A new mains on Langborne Road was installed, which was to become a collection sewer. Spital Bridge was to be closed for 7 weeks to allow Yorkshire Water to work on that area. The piling work at Endeavour Wharf was completed. The next stage of the Abbey Headland project was underway, with the construction of a new entrance from the new car park. The entrance had to be hidden so as not to spoil the landscape of the Abbey, so the land was excavated & the building sunk down.
Also in March, W. Eves installed 2 fuel tanks at the rear of Fairways Garage. The tanks were to be moved to their other garage on New Quay Road, when Yorkshire Water had finished working on the road. Whitby Fishermen's Rowing Club got permission to change the cottage next door into a changing & shower room for their use. Previous to this, the club had shared gender shower & changing facilities. The main door to the cottage was not to be used unless in an emergency. Also in March, stained glass windows, almost 100 years old were removed from West Cliff Congregational Church and replaced with transparent glass.

Grape Lane Gifts opened in May on Grape Lane, somewhere for youngsters to spend their pocket money. In June, a one-stop-shop travel centre was opened in Whitby's Railway Station, taking care of Northern Spirit, North Yorkshire Moors Railway & Arriva. The old travel office in the bus station was closed for good.

Also in June, it was noticed that cracks were appearing in Baxtergate. It was thought that the cracks could be linked to work by Yorkshire Water and an investigation was launched by Yorkshire Water. There was a new business opened in Hinderwell, which specialised in making inflatable goods, which included children's slides, bouncy castles and other goods. In July, work that was being carried out in Runswick Bay on sea defences hit a snag after a crane was crushed by a drilling rig, also being used as part of the equipment. A replacement crane was brought in. On the evening of 26th July, a fire started in the East engine room of the Swing Bridge. It started at around 8:15pm and was thought to have started after wood shavings, used to soak up some oil from an oil leak, caught fire from a spark caused by moving parts of the machinery rubbing. No damage was done, as the fire was quickly extinguished. In August, St. Hilda's Church on Bagdale was having re-roofing work take place, after being closed for about 18 months. The church re-opened in December after the work, costing £250,000, and the church was re-dedicated by the Bishop of Middlesbrough, John Crowley. The Roman Catholic Church had its pews removed also as part of the work, and would be replaced with removable seating, so if the building was to be used by a school for example, the seating could easily be removed temporarily. Work was also going on at St. Mary's Church, which was the 2nd church in Whitby to be covered in scaffolding, this time to have its clock tower faulty stones removed. August also saw the opening of the new Southern entrance to the Abbey, with the adjacent car park open 2 years previous. The entrance, to the southern end of the Abbey, cost £600,000 and was built into a walled bank.

Left: GK - St. Hilda's Catholic Church, Bagdale; Right: Whitby Abbey South entrance opened in this year

On a busy summer night, with 150 diners inside, Trenchers Restaurant on New Quay Road caught fire. It was 14th August when the fire started in storage space on the first floor and the first sign anyone got that something was wrong, was when the stove started making a strange noise. The restaurant was very quickly evacuated and the fire brigade called, otherwise the results could have been fatal, however, thanks to the quick-thinking of staff, no-one was injured. On further investigations after the fire, it was realised it would take much more work than first anticipated and the whole building was virtually demolished. A steel shell was constructed and the front facade replaced. On to more positive business news, Andy Brown, Hugh Gollogly & Mark Anderson joined forces to offer financial advice in a premises next to Mackays, in a building previously a hair salon & more recently, a picture framers.

GK - 14th August - Trenchers fire

On to more history-making happenings, from September 13th, major work was once again causing major problems in the Town Centre, similar to that of the beginning of the year, but this time for a longer period, right up until Easter! The first of the disruption actually came a week earlier on the 6th September, when Church Street was turned into chaos until February. The total of the works to be completed by Easter consisted of 4 pipes to be laid, 1: Linking the shaft in Church Street car park to the pipe bridge, which was being constructed at the time at Spital Bridge with the collection sewer for effluent from the East side, 2: The main sewer from the pumping station at Dock End to Broomfield Farm treatment plant, 3: Odour control pipe, which would return clear, treated water to the sea outfall pipe, which would be number 4, which was to be installed, and was hauled out to the East Pier, and measured 1,500 metres long when it was fully constructed. Pipes linking East Pier & Tate Hill Pier were sunk & also pipes between the Fish Pier & the Swing Bridge were laid. Work on the Bagdale sewer was also started on Bagdale just beneath Pannett Park. Work also resumed in Sandsend, which saw the installation of a pipe beneath the beach from the foot of Lythe Bank to East Row & final section of rising main. Due to the work in Pier Road, the tea kiosk near the Pier Inn had to move to the opposite side of the Fish Quay. Due to all the work going on with the town's roads throughout the autumn and winter, the driving test centre closed until Easter, a similar move to that of the previous year.

Also in August, a new scheme was introduced at some council car parks around the region, which meant drivers could park in multiple car parks as longs as the ticket was still within its validity time. West Cliff car park in Whitby was included, as well as Sandsend, Robin Hood's Bay, Marine & Royal Albert Drive in Scarborough & all council car parks in Filey. Whitby paramedics got their hands on a new 4x4 ambulance. The vehicle, a Volkswagen Transporter, would mean they could access places some other normal ambulances couldn't, especially in the winter months. At the end of August, Whitby got a new pilot boat which replaced the old one, Lady Aelfleda, which had served the port for 30 years. The new boat, named St. Hilda by local school children, was from Amble and was a Waveney Class Lifeboat. The Lady Aelfleda was put up for sale for £6,000, but no buyers came forward, so she was used in the coming 2 years to ferry materials for Yorkshire Water. After that it was used to help out with the East Pier stabilisation scheme, in 2000/01. In September, work on stone boundary walls on the Esk Valley Railway line was underway, making it less of a risk of animals on the line. The project cost £83,000 & railtrack paid £50,000, with North Yorkshire Moors National Park making a contribution.

A LOVAT tunnel boring machine called 'Vicky' arrived in Whitby on 28th September, to aid Yorkshire Water in tunnelling their way under the Harbour. This would be done from Dock End to Church Street Car Park. The machine was lowered down the hole in 3 bits, by a 400 ton crane, and put together down there. It was a week later that the work finally got underway, when local school girl Vicky Hodgson pressed the button to start it all off. When the other side was reached, in the middle of November, Church Street car park was closed from 17th December to sometime in January, when only 40 spaces would be available. At the end of November, Bagdale was closed overnight for 3 consecutive nights, while tunnel boring works went underway, linking the shaft at the foot of Pannett Park, with the one at the bottom of Chubb Hill, near Arundel Hotel. A pipe would take sewage from the Dairy at White Ley's to the pumping station in town, which would run under the old railway line then under Chubb Hill and to a shaft at the bottom of Chubb Hill near Arundel Hotel. A pipe would take sewage from the Dairy at White Ley's to the pumping station in town, which would run under the old railway line then under Chubb Hill Road and to the shaft at the bottom of Chubb Hill. The connection to the pipes under the old railway line to the Dairy wouldn't be made until next Spring though. As a side note, when the Christmas tree when up in its usual place opposite the Gazette Office in Bridge Street, Yorkshire Water couldn't get their machinery over the wall and into the harbour, so the tree had to come back down. It was erected in Market Place and fully decorated. The one that normally would have stood in Dock End was obviously unable to be put up. While this was happening in Whitby, just up the coast, Yorkshire Water started work on new pumping stations at Staithes & Runswick Bay to go with the treatment works, where construction was already underway, at Hinderwell, which would be where the sewage would be pumped to.

In other news Whitby Job Centre had taken on the task of administering the governments Job Finders Grant, for the whole of Yorkshire & Humberside. The grant was available to those who had been out of work for 2 years of more and this meant 3 extra staff were taken on at the Job Centre, taking the total to 15.

Also in October, a car body repair shop on Stainsacre Industrial Estate changed back to its former use, as a fish processing factory. Nobles fish moved back to Whitby from Staithes, also promising to buy new equipment and feature a shop. It was decided around October that a new bandstand was needed because of visibility & access for the disabled, however, before work began, the roof was blown off the old one and the council decided it was best from a health & safety point of view to dismantle the rest of it. It was decided from the beginning that the design would replicate the old bandstand.

In October, work started in Robin Hood's Bay & Fylingthorpe, in what was the next stage of Yorkshire Water's project, 'Coast Care'. Work there included a pumping station at Fylingthorpe, and one at both lower and upper Robin Hood's Bay. From Robin Hood's Bay Upper pumping station, waste would travel along Thorpe Lane to Fylingthorpe. Also in October, Whitby Harbour Office had its C.C.T.V. equipment upgraded to enable them to record colour images, rather than just black and white. They could also record onto CD-ROM, as opposed to video in the past. The 2 cameras were also repositioned to give them better coverage. Work cost over £55,000.

In November, Brompton Clothing, in the former Burberry's premises, closed its doors and made 12 people redundant. The company decided to move back to Leeds, as the owner was sick of Scarborough Borough Council. On Bon Fire Night, strom-force winds literally blew the roof off Staithes Athletic Club. The club was re-open 50 days later, with a new roof - obviously!

Late night & Sunday bus services were a success following a trial run by Arriva, which started in early September was a huge success and so it was to continue. The Scarborough to Whitby bus, arriving at Whitby at 11:05pm and late night buses to Loftus & Fylingthorpe proved popular. The Metropole got new owners, which meant plans that were in place to allow the building to register births, deaths and marriages was scrapped. In November, Superdrug was re-branded and the Whitby store got a refurbishment, taking 3 weeks to complete.

In early December, youngsters were to be given a temporary skate park, on the West Cliff Tennis Courts. It was hoped to be open by Christmas.
Work also started in December on the site of the former Oak Tree Pub. PLC Homes of Skipton moved onto the site to start building works on houses and flats.

Other happenings in 1999 include: Carr Hall, was to become a housing development, which would see the old wooden chapel & caretaker's cottage demolished to make way for 5 houses and 2 bungalows and the main school buildings changed to 13 apartments; A house was built on land adjacent to 26 Selstone Crescent, Sleights, to become 27. The Saxonville Hotel had a single-storey extension built, to house a dining room; Scarborough Borough Council put a compulsory purchase order on a house at 145 Church Street, which was to be re-built, with the building in a bad state of repair. Tees Valley Housing Association bought it, doing it up and creating a retail space & 2 residential flats above in the 18th century building. Midland Bank on the end of Baxtergate changed its name HSBC, after the company decided to phase out the Midland Bank name after HSBC holdings bought the Midland Bank in 1992.

Right: 27 Selstone Crescent, built in 1999