The Council has not consulted with local businesses, commercial fishing or charter boats, which operate businesses from the harbour on harbourside pedestrianisation.

We are all against the closure of roads around the harbour as it becomes impossible loading and unloading fish and people with their gear off the boats.

Why is this getting pushed through without consulting all the businesses around the harbour?

There was a petition of over 300 signatures against this proposal which has been ignored.

By closing the road along the harbour, you put more people on the quayside and just how on a hot sunny day do you expect people to keep two metres apart with alcohol?

It’s more likely to be six inches than six feet. This could make Weymouth likely to have lockdown as in Leicester.

By stop car parking on the quay, where are people going to park for a quick visit to a shop at lower end of town?

Your statement said “road had to be keep clear for emergency vehicles and the land train”. So why close the road? You can social distance with the road open as we have been doing from the time we were allowed out of lockdown .

It was also stated: 'The traffic system worked well when the Olympics were here'. There were NO people here. Hotels were empty. Shops were empty. People didn’t come.

When they close the quay to traffic, the roads will all be jammed up. King St will be a bigger nightmare than it already is. Pedestrianising Custom House Quay was trialled 1994 and it was abandoned three hours into the project as it was utters chaos with vehicles coming to the end of the seafront.

It’s now 2020 and there are more vehicles on the roads of Weymouth now.

Why 12 week road closure? By the first week of September most holidaymakers will have left Weymouth. Surely if you were going to try this, a one week trial would be better? This would not make the council look such idiots when it doesn’t work and all the roads in Weymouth jam up.

Has the council or the harbourmaster done a full risk assessment? If I remember correctly, on an open quay under port regulation there should be a one metre high railing to stop people falling into the harbour.

Large sections of the quay wall have no railings at all. Can I ask you for barriers two metres from the quay wall to keep all the boat users and workers/drinkers socially distanced?

I have worked out of Weymouth harbour for more than50 years and just can’t see why the council is doing this around the harbour. The holidaymakers come to see a working harbour, not a harbourside full of drunkards because that is what it is going turn into if they go ahead with this plan for Weymouth Harbour.

Dave Pitman

Chairman of Weymouth and Portland Fisheman and Licensed Boatmen Association