Gower SOS, Business, Tourism, Fishing and those who care.

Euphoria Sailing Ltd. & Watersports 4 All – representing tourism operators and Gower SOS Save our sands on this issue.

I swam at various Gower beaches nearly every day as a child, 20+ years ago with sand eel shoals everywhere.

When I walk to the same beaches over the last few years the sand has gone and huge rocks have been revealed.

I spend nearly every day in or on the water at Oxwich Bay, the sand eels have gone, the cockle beds are thin – less sand and less cockles. Last Sunday Clams were strewn across the beach torn from their unsheltered beds, which should be 18 inches deep. On Monday Pobbles was a lunar landscape with a 1-metre decrease in sand. I’ve never seen this before. As a sailing and powerboat instructor I understand the seasonal weather changes and tidal flows more than most, I cannot teach sailing and launch boats on rocky beaches – it’s dangerous.

Something is taking our beaches, I’ve taken some sand, natural phenomena have taken some, and the open cast sand dredgers have taken 100M T. If we stop dredging today sand will still relocate from beaches to backfill the sand banks, which protect our beaches, possibly for years to come. Think of the egg timer and use this as an analogy to imagine future sand erosion.

I understand the implications to the dredging jobs, construction industry and bank rolls. We need to dredge our shipping channels but exporting our sand for huge profits not returned to the local economy is a finite rape of our most beautiful natural resource. In parts of Europe sand dredging is banned up to 25K offshore so they import it from Wales. Tourism employs 30K people in this area, fishing is huge and its on the up – we will ruin this forever – this is sand formed in the last ice age which our children and visitors will never enjoy at its best. With storm surges and global warming a reality our sand banks will have to work harder to reduce the Atlantic swells and storms forecast to protect our coastline, the banks will use what is left on the beach to protect the bays.

We have to provide evidence to halt this, the dredging companies use expensive lasers, sonar’s and employees to produce their biased arguments. Dredging owners have also owned tobacco companies, they are well used to pulling the wool over our eyes.

We can produce masses of scientists and public anecdotal evidence to prove the opposite. Why should we fight to protect our beaches – the dredgers should be fighting us to take them. The Welsh Assembly needs to action this today, the environmental issue is in the limelight more and more and the politicians discuss it more and more. We need definite action today. Please put pen to paper to Rhodri Morgan, please internet surf the Gower SOS website and blog, visit the Euphoria Sailing and Mumbles Matters blogs on this issue, just leave an electronic protest, it’s a permanent record of your support. Spend time gaining an opinion and then time acting on it. Sand costs only £30 a ton delivered locally, without tourism property prices will drop, the sand will run out, what will construction do then. It’s economically viable to get sand elsewhere, it’s happened with coal and now natural Gas.

What would we say if we drove to work each day, passing Aberavon Beach, Swansea Bay or Port Eynon watching the sand being dug off the beach with huge tractors. It’s happening covertly with huge ships sucking the life and livelihood from our South Wales coast.