New webcam at Northumberland harbour attracts thousands of views

Webcams are now showing Seahouses harbour. Picture by Jane Coltman

A webcam has been installed at Seahouses harbour which also offers views to the Farne Islands, Holy Island and Bamburgh Castle.

“We’ve been getting loads of visitors to our new website to watch the webcams which has been fantastic to see,” said harbourmaster Barry Gardner.

Figures show there have been 11,514 individual visits in the two months since the webcam went live, with the website attracting 35,855 visitors since August.

“We’ve got people from all over the world taking a look at the webcams,” said Barry. “We’ve had visitors from Australia, Africa and the Middle East and we’ve got a regular viewer from Germany.

“They probably all have links to Seahouses or Northumberland in some way, whether they lived here and moved away or have family here or if they’ve been on holiday.

The webcam installation formed part of an upgrade of the CCTV system to assist in the safety and security of the harbour.

“It started out as a health and safety measure but we realised a lot of people just like the view from the seats outside the harbour office,” explained Barry.

“They like to see the comings and goings from the harbour and, more generally, watch the world go by.

“We had a suggestion that there could be a camera looking at the landscape which the fishermen use to check the tides and other boats using to see what the weather is like out on the islands.

“That camera permanently pans around different parts of the harbour, to the Farnes, Holy Island and Bamburgh so it’s gone down very well with tourists too.”

A £3million restoration of the main pier which has seen the structure ‘re-skinned’ has recently been completed.

North Sunderland Harbour Commission was impressed with safety measures implemented during those works and now plans to make some changes.

“During the works, people were being escorted to the boats and it worked really well,” said Barry, “so we’re looking at introducing new road markings, signage & specific drop off/ loading points to make easier and safer access for trip boats, booking offices and dive boats.”

The webcam can be viewed at www.nsh.org.uk/