Shonette Bason wants to reopen Hartlepool's beach huts as a summer school

Transcript

00:00 I believe that you have taken ownership to run them but can't get into them, is that

00:07 correct?

00:08 I won the tenure for the hoods in December 2023 and my intention is to run a beach camp

00:21 and a beach nursery school from the hoods from children aged 2 to 11 years old.

00:31 And are you able to progress with those plans?

00:34 No, because the council has persistently and consistently put obstacles in my way to give

00:40 me the keys and to start paying rent on them. We would have liked to have had them from

00:46 February but it's now nearly May and as you can see the beach hoods are still empty and

00:53 we still, and now they won't even reply to our emails.

00:57 So you've got no reason given to you as to why you'd lock out?

01:00 No, no reason. We have ticked all the boxes, jumped all the hoops so far. Because it's

01:07 an out of the box idea, having a nursery in the beach hoods, there's no change of use

01:13 because we're just using them with children rather than with adults and families and the

01:18 council just can't wrap their head around that and perhaps don't want such an innovative

01:23 idea in this beautiful coastal town.

01:26 So what's your next plan of action?

01:28 Luckily I have made a community link with the Thrive Hive and Alex at the Thrive Hive

01:34 which is a community hub in the Methodist church round the corner and she has agreed

01:40 to, with the Reverend, to rent me the chapel on a temporary basis starting from June.

01:49 (wind blowing)