As we wait for the Welsh Assembly decision on continuing and possibly increasing aggregate dredging of the Helwick sand bank, evidence is still flooding in on the damage already caused. Left is a picture of Caswell Bay from the East side. The family are helping their child across dangerous rocks, this was thick sand 20 years ago. I know as I used to run across sand between the two big rocks in the foreground onto more sand.
All these pictures are the tip of a huge issue developing on Gower and other beaches.
Claire is highly concerned about Horton and Port Eynon with extremely good reason. The picture of Horton Left has been used on the right hand sand of this web blog to help illustrate the devastation that has been caused by dredging the Helwick and other inshore sand banks over the past years. Check out Claire's other shots from April 2007 here.We must urge the WAG to take immediate action to halt inshore dredging. The evidence is piling in from witnesses of the mass destruction of one of Wales last natural resources.
3 comments:
Hello,
I can not believe how the beach now looks. I was there the other day and I quite simply could not understand how the devastation to this part of the country can continue because of dredging.
Port Eynon has been one of my all time favourite places to visit in the world but with how it is now I'm not to sure on how long this little seaside village will survive.
Please keep up the fight.
regards
Stuart Webb
Worcester
I am absolutely disgusted at the news about plans to increase sand dredging near the Gower peninsula !!!
Please let us have more information about what we can to do help - it will be too late when the coast is ruined as the dredgers will have gone to destroy another part of the coast.
I was in Devon last week and learnt about some of their shingle beaches had been ruined by dredging. Coast erosion is a big enough problem, and getting bigger, without being made totally unmanageable by the sand dredger wreaking havoc !!
Save our Sands !!!!
My mother who was brought up in Barry, 60 years ago, now tells me that she no longer goes to Barry island because mud is appearing on the beach. She has never known this in the past. Is there more money in sand revenues than tourism? Your legacy will not be forgotten.
John Jones
""Goodbye Porthcawl, Barry next, then Gower."
So the assembly/council have given the go-ahead for removing the Porthcawl theme park, and to allow the building of houses and shops along Porthcawl sea front, and to continue taking the sand from the beach by dredging the channel. Alluvial mud is already appearing on Porthcawl beach as the sand is drained away. Mud is also appearing on Barry beach, and houses are being built on its cliffs. And whatever happened to Lavernock?
There's more money for the assembly in sand revenues and land deals than tourism. Goodbye Porthcawl. Goobye Barry. Goodbye beaches. Gower next.
Building flats on Porthcawl beachfront will ensure that shoreline residents will not complain about the loss of tourism or notice the slow destruction of the beach, while the council will have plenty of new money in its coffers from land and sand deals. They expect few complaints. But what a catastrophy to permanently lose these natural assets, and to lose Porthcawl as an attraction. Never mind global warming, we cannot even look after our own back yard.
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