January 9 2014.

Bob Brown writes:


I note the most recent comments from "Jim" Skinner. Because of the tone of Jim's personal emails to me about this issue, I took the trouble to check out the main Beach area thoroughly this morning as far as Boenningstedt Parade. I have to admit that the attached photos reveal that although the beach has not "failed" as Jim has put it, it has come perilously close to suffering a catastrophic loss of material, allowing the high tides to nearly breach the promenade east of the Beachcomber site where most of the large properties lie the other side of the promenade road.



In previous years there had usually been a flat area of at least 15-20m parallel to the promenade surface which could be used by the lorries to move back shingle washed towards Splash Point, the main captive area for the shingle after the Autumn and Spring storms. Now with this "platform" virtually disappeared by being leached out, there will have to be immense activity by the two available Environment Agency diggers to replace material for the lorries to run on, if the present profile is not further damaged by any new tides.



Further westwards at Boenningstedt Parade a considerable part of the promenade has been exposed and one excavator is frantically trying to cover this up. But as can be seen from photo 3363 the former pebbles in this area have now worn down to coarse shingle which is little better as a storm defence than sand. This shingle will be sucked back into the Bay and no doubt fall to the sea-bottom effectively raising the water above it and making erosion worse at high tides.



As Norman Baker should be in Seaford on Saturday morning for his surgery, I have requested him to spend a few minutes along the promenade area to review the situation. I would be only too pleased to point out what the problem is and will inevitably worsen in the future as sea levels rise and the Beach shingle continues to abraid into sand.

As far as the petition issue is concerned Norman Baker is obviously responsible to his constituents, which is why he has approached ESCC now regarding the threatened closure of Seaford Tip on the back of the (I understand) nigh on 9,000 signatures to that petition. If Jim will enlighten us as to the number of signatures over the years he has obtained from residents of Norman's constituency as against visitors to the area, it might indicate how much support he has locally for his demand for an offshore reef.


Bob Brown


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