Belle Tout Lighthouse Has Purchase Offer
By Sue Clark on Sep 9, 2007 in Lighthouses For Sale 
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Approval has been given to the trust created to purchase Belle Toute Lighthouse, in East Sussex, UK, to go ahead with plans to turn the decrepit, but expensive, lighthouse into a bed and breakfast. The lighthouse went up for sale this year, with an asking price of $1,733,724USD.
According to the story from the BBC News, the Eastbourne Borough Council gave the go ahead to the planning application to the Belle Toute Lighthouse Preservation Trust, who now has to raise the funds necessary to purchase and renovate the 175 year old light, perched at the top of the Seven Sisters Chalk Cliff overlooking the English Channel. The councillors backed the plan, even though the planning officers recommended against it due to the lack of visitor parking. The plan was approved sunject to a new access road being created at the site.
However, unluckily for the trust, someone else has put an offer in for the lighthouse. From their news page:
This has been by far the most exciting and eventful week in the trusts history in terms of having the planning permission approved, media attention on the radio, papers, TV etc, although it ends on a sour note.
It has come to our attention that an offer has been placed on the Belle Toute Lighthouse by someone else. There is currently a ‘lockout’ period which began on Monday that lasts for three weeks whilst solicitors handle the paperwork. We do not know who it is, how much their offer is or what their intentions are for the historic Belle Toute.
The trust remains positive and whilst we will not actively fund-raise during this lockout period we will wait with bated breath for whether this offer is genuine and whether the sale will go ahead.
At this point we would like to reassure our supporters that should the sale fall through then we will be more proactive than ever in making the dream for the public come true. Should the sale go ahead, then we will continue to exist to provide information about the lighthouse and its history, the geology of the area, photographs and continue to campaign and fund raise until such a time that the lighthouse comes up for sale again.
Lighthouse News wonders if there is some sort of lighthouse buying frenzy going on. First we have Mr. Gabriel buying the Fourteen Foot Bank and Bloody Point Lighthouses. Now we have another anonymous person going after a highly publicized lighthouse sale. Perhaps, this unknown person who made the offer intends to buy it and donate it back to the Lighthouse Trust? That would be the best case, since beyond the purchase price, it’s estimated another two and a quarter million dollars is needed to repair this grand lady.
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