HALLSANDS is once again at the front line of coastal erosion and the fight to save local fishing communities. The storms since Christmas have removed all of the shingle from the beach, unearthing a base-layer of ancient peat that is now being washed away with every tide. Tim Lynn, a fisherman who works off the beach explained: ‘Since October we’ve had southerly and south-westerly winds and it’s taken all the shingle up to Strete Gate. ‘We understand that we won’t get any help anymore, but the only way to save all of Start Bay is to renew the shingle from Strete Gate and push it out to sea so it moves around to Torcross, Beesands and Hallsands. 'In the long-term, I think using dredgers would be a cheaper way of doing everything - instead of using boulders and moving shingle by land.’ In February 2014, Hallsands was hit by huge storms that caused extensive damage to the sea defences, car park and the stretch of road behind the beach.Tim continued: ‘For the past three years, the peat has been exposed and taken a beating. Now there are big chunks ripping off. We’ve got more damage here now than in 2014 - the sea’s been constant from the south-west and all last summer, it never gave up - we’re losing shingle all the time.’ Tim’s family history can be traced back to the old village of Hallsands, which was washed into the sea following a storm in 1917. Tim went on: ‘The beach is unusable at the moment. We packed the fishing in at the end of October this year - we usually fish up until Christmas. ‘People forget that there’s a fishing community at Hallsands and Beesands - if there’s no beach, there’s no fishing. We might be small people, but we still pay taxes - and people are always asking for fish. We need to be operating, there are only a handful of us left fishing off beaches, so we need to keep it going.’

Beshlie Pool, executive officer from South Devon and Channel Shellfishermen said: ‘We are concerned that the loss of sediment along our coast could herald the final demise of a time honoured and important local tradition - beach boat fishing. There have been fishing communities present on this coastline since time immemorial, with tourists being drawn to the spectacle of launching from and landing on the shingle. ‘Without a beach, there can be no beach boats - a sad loss to the local coastal community indeed.’

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