A district council has been forced to pay out almost £88,000 after it granted a lease to the wrong company, Kent Online can exclusively reveal.

Dover District Council (DDC) incorrectly signed a 50-year lease for land and property on the Quay in Sandwich over to a limited company 100% owned by shipwright Bob Hill rather than to a trust he was involved with.

In order for Mr Hill to surrender the lease and return the land to public ownership, the authority has today issued him £87,515.

As part of the agreement, he must also remove his boat which had been moored adjacent to the property.

The lease was intended for Sandwich Historical Boatyard Trust, a not-for-profit project set up by Mr Hill and Bob Martin in 2015.

The boathouse they built on the Quay, erected in 2016, was to offer young apprentices experience in traditional boat-building, and a beautiful replica medieval boat was to be constructed and moored close-by providing a source of continuing interest for residents and tourists.

When progress stopped, it was uncovered that DDC had granted the lease to Sandwich Historical Boatyard Ltd, a limited company, solely owned by Mr Hill.

The two men became divided and there were calls from members of the public including an action group for an independent review in to the matter.

This was later carried out by the East Kent Audit Partnership. It found that Dover District Council was fully responsible for the lease blunder and in December 2017, the authority issued an apology.

A report stated that the council failed to carry out adequate due diligence checks after its officers simply complied with a solicitor’s request to change the name from the trust to the limited company without robust challenge or effective understanding of the impact.

However, there was no evidence to suggest it was deliberate wrongdoing. Instead, it stated that it was a human error.

Since then, negotiations between DDC and Mr Hill have been ongoing, with the public keen to see the building put to community use.

The Sandwich Boatyard Action Group (SBAG), which demonstrated at council meetings over the blunder and called for the independent review, has welcomed the solution.

Spokesman Nicholas Gray said: "We are pleased to learn that DDC have now reached an agreement with Bob Hill for him and his company to surrender the lease of the premises, to vacate and hand possession of the boatyard building back to DDC and for Mr Hill to remove his boat from the Quay.

"This has been a long time coming but it means that now the building on the Quay can at last be returned to public ownership and plans can be drawn up for its proper use as a medieval boatyard visitor attraction.

"We will continue to press for this, which we believe is the outcome most wished for by Sandwich residents and is the original purpose for which planning permission was granted and the building was built."

But in a statement today, DDC say discussions on the future use of the site are underway with a number of local community groups.

Mr Gray has described the P22 Trust's potential bid as "a fly in the ointment".

He said: "The P22 is of very little historic interest, having only been built in 1952, and has absolutely no connection whatsoever with Sandwich or its past.

"It would, in our view, be wholly inappropriate for the boatyard building, always intended for community use to promote the medieval history of Sandwich, to be taken over by a semi-commercial venture to display for its own benefit a post-Second World War vessel.

"We in SBAG didn’t work so hard over the past 10 months to see this community based not-for-profit medieval project hi-jacked by the owners of the gunboat for their own use."

Proposals for the future use of the site will go before DDC's cabinet for decision in due course.

In the meantime, the authority says it is working to prepare the building for occupancy, including installing an electricity supply, removing the existing fencing around the site and arranging for the grass to be mowed.

It's confident that future rental income from leasing the building will enable the costs of the settlement to be recovered.

Cllr Trevor Bartlett, cabinet member for property management, said: “By returning the site to public ownership we can now work with the community to realise the full potential of the building to enhance the town’s tourism offer.”

A spokesman for the PT22 Trust said: "The USN P22 Trust had no aspirations in relation to the Medieval Boatyard, which has recently been taken into public ownership.

"The Trust was invited to DDC to be shown the details regarding the potential opportunity available and if we would like to lodge an interest.

"The Boatyard building and ground, which is only available as an opportunity to lease, does not fit the aims and aspirations of the Trust at this time and as such, it will not be taking up the offer from DDC to register an interest in acquiring the lease.

"The USN P22 continues to be a great tourist attraction on the Quay as a charitable trust and continues to pay mooring fees levied by DDC."

Bob Hill and Bob Martin have also been approached for comments.