Proud pensioner's legal fight to save 'Capt Cook's port'

A PENSIONER has won a decade-long legal fight to save Captain Cook's old port from ruin.

- By Mark Branagan

Sue Boyce bet her retirement nest egg, including her premium bonds, on a £100,000 battle to prove Scarborough Borough Council was failing to use funds generated by Whitby harbour to support its upkeep.

Now the High Court has ruled in her favour, meaning North Yorkshire Council which has replaced the local authority has to pay at least £10million raised from parking fees on urgent repairs to the picturesque port.

Mrs Boyce said: "Tens of millions of pounds needs to be spent to strengthen the piers otherwise flooding and depredation will be widespread the whole town will flood."

Mrs Boyce set up Fight4Whitby and carried out painstaking research into laws dating back to 1827 and discovered that an Act dating from 1905 was still in force.