Residents have voiced their anger at a plan to see a new restaurant coming to Leigh Old Town.

They have said the High Street does not need another restaurant. Yet the plan is part of a last-ditch bid to open up an historic wharf to public use again.

Almost five years ago, council bosses at Southend approved a new lease for Strand Wharf.

The deal, agreed with Leigh company Mirencliff, led to a 199-year-old lease on the ancient quay - as long as it was developed as a restaurant.

Almost instantly, local people - from historians to fishermen, residents to councillors - launched a campaign to block the development.

Since 1615, the wharf has been an important point for boarding ships - including passengers who set out on the historic voyage of the Mayflower to the New World in 1620.

The planning wrangle rumbled on for years as bosses at Mirencliff struggled to develop their restaurant plans and opponents battled stop it.

Last year, Mirencliff managed to win final planning permission and building regulations approval for the Strand Wharf site.

Yet suddenly, the flurry of activity surrounding the development petered out. No building work started and people forgot about the plans.

The silence was only explained earlier this month when it was revealed negotiations had been going on between Southend Council, Mirencliff and bosses at Mike's Boatyard.

The new proposals - which still have to be considered by Southend Council planners - involve Mirencliff turning Mike's Boatyard into a 152-seater restaurant.

In a separate application, Mike's Boatyard would then move further along the Old Town High Street to the disused Tepco warehouse.

The upshot would be that Strand Wharf would not be developed and would be open again to the public.

Yet, after years of campaigning to keep Strand wharf undeveloped, residents have declared at a recent Leigh Town Council meeting the area does not need another restaurant.

John Cross, the Mirencliff man behind the restaurant plans, was left disappointed by the latest opposition.

He said: "It's sad everyone seems to focus on the negative side of this and not the positive.

"People will get Strand Wharf back and it will be the last chance for that to happen for the next 200 years.

"If anything goes wrong with the new plans, then we will start to work on Strand Wharf - as we are perfectly entitled to do - and that will certainly be before the end of this year."

Fears have been raised that using Mike's Boatyard as a giant restaurant would mean losing an important resource to Leigh's marine industry.

Yet Colin Sedgwick, owner of the boatyard, said nothing could be further from the truth.

He said: "This will be beneficial for the industry.

"I hope to build a new slipway for taking bigger boats out of the estuary than I can currently do in the covered boatyard. I will be able to do everything I have been doing at Mike's Boatyard for the last 30 years."

Mr Sedgwick even admitted the move to the empty Tepco would be better for his business.

He added: "It's tough running a boatyard and the expenses have got too great - that's why I'm trying to consolidate the business farther up the road."

Lib Dem Leigh councillor Peter Wexham has said the new plans offer the best solution to a difficult dilemma.

He added: "Although I'm not happy about the boatyard, we have already lost the battle of having a new restaurant.

"The restaurant can go ahead tomorrow.

"This isn't going to please everyone, but it will be the least disruptive development in the town."

Southend Council's development control sub-committee will meet on November 11 to consider both sets of plans.

Top: Strand Wharf - restaurant plans may be shelved if new proposals go ahead.

John Cross of Mirencliff, left, and boatyard owner Colin Sedgwick

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.