THE South Hams, broadly, escaped the wrath of Storm Imogen at the beginning of the week, but Beesands lost even more of its beach.

While North Devon and Cornwall had swaths of power cuts and disruptions to road and train networks, the South Hams saw a couple of trees down and some broken fences but the main victim was the coastline between Hallsands and Torcross.

The beach at Beesands has been eroding for many years, as all coastlines do, and has rock armour protecting the village end. But, as soon as the rock armour finishes, there is now a large lump of sand, earth and stone gouged out of the bank, creeping further and further towards the Widdicombe Ley.

Pipes and wires have been left hanging from the exposed edge of the cliff, with the geological layers, laid down over generations, are clearly visible as the sea cuts through the coastline.

The Ley, a small freshwater lake that attracts many different species of bird including Coot, Great Crested Grebes, Tufted Ducks, Pochards, Gadwalls and Shovelers, has a bird-watching hide on its shore.

The road along the edge of the beach was lost in 2014, and now the sea is removing more and more of the coastline, pushing the path further and further back towards the Ley.

Beesands resident Rachael Hutchings said: ‘Everything is just slipping away’.

The South Devon and Dorset Coastal Advisory Group’s Shoreline Management Plan for Beesands states that the ‘long term vision’ is to manage the coastline for a ‘more sustainable, naturally functioning coastal system’ can be achieved.

Implementation of this policy would ‘involve allowing the beach to roll back landwards into Widdicombe Ley’, while ‘taking steps to minimise any increased flood risk this may pose to the developed area of Beesands on the southern side of the Ley’.

The plan is to ‘hold the line’ where the properties are, but ‘no active intervention’ at the undefended end of the beach, allowing the coastline to evolve naturally.

Avon Mill Garden Centre near Loddiswell was forced to close on Monday due to the wind smashing a window and leaving glass in the entrance house. Thread boutique, on the same site, was also closed on Monday but the café remained open. Business was back to normal on Tuesday.

Other damage reported in the South Hams after Storm Imogen include smashed fences, trees blown down and left across roads, roof tiles and slates blown off, collapsing sheds and bins blown over.