The need to find ‘people with sound local knowledge’ to manage Piel Island was stressed as its future came under the spotlight at a council meeting.
The search for a new manager of the island and its pub – the Ship Inn – is set to begin in January, with a start date of April.
The plans to secure the future of the site off the southern tip of the Furness Peninsula were discussed at a meeting of Barrow Borough Council’s overview and scrutiny committee on Thursday.
A partnership organisation – the Piel Island Pub Company – stepped in to ensure the Ship Inn was able to open between July and September of this year, but this was only a temporary arrangement.
Cllr Frank Cassidy, vice-chairman of the overview and scrutiny committee, told the meeting: “I think it’s important that the right people are installed, people with sound local knowledge, a feel for the island and its history.”
Sandra Baines, head of visitor economy and culture at the borough council, emphasised the need for any manager of the island to understand the potential drawbacks of life there. She used the weather as an example.
“It needs to be someone that understands that living on Piel Island is not the dream people might think it is,” she said.
Chris Jones, head of programme management and climate change at the council, said: “There are significant constraints to living and working on Piel Island and people need to think about that.”
Ms Baines also sought to assuage the fears of Cllr Therese Assouad, who said a manager of the island over the summer had been talking about turning Piel into ‘some kind of wedding venue, with horses and carts going across the sand’.
Cllr Assouad said: “Are we looking at making as much money out of it as possible, or preserving it more or less as it is, but making it viable?”
Ms Baines said: “It is very much about preserving its beauty, its natural habitat.
“We are not looking at it for horse and carts.”
She said ‘smaller-scale events’ would be a consideration ‘but not big parties’.
The future of Piel Island will now be considered by the borough council’s executive committee in January.
