Hayle Beach - Cornwall

[soshayle]

SOSHayle needs your help to protect a Cornish Beach and Harbour. 
Please visit our we site and sign our petition 
www.soshayle.fsnet.co.uk.

Hayle beach in Cornwall lies at the southernmost part of St Ives Bay. 
About three years ago the owners of Hayle Harbour embarked on the 
commercial extraction of sand from the area which has had, and is 
continuing to have a catastrophic effect on the beach and dunes.

Following an SOS Campaign a coastal processes study was commissioned 
by the District Council which the habour owners agreed to abide by. 
The study concluded that sand extraction should cease – the harbour 
owners have decided to carry on digging anyway despite there previous 
agreement.

Pressure from SOS and English Nature resulted in a Section 18 Notice 
being placed on the beach – a law which we hoped would compel the 
owners to cease sand removal.

In the meantime the Harbour Company was declared bankrupt and was 
bought out by the Dutch developer and investment company ING. Their 
first action has been to do to their corporate layers and effectively 
overturn the section 18 notice so that they can resume sand mining by 
insisting that sand must be cleared for navigation purposes. This is 
despite the fact that the fishermen of Hayle say such sand removal in 
unnecessary and indeed INGs digging operations are actually making 
things worse.

SOS now believes that the only way forward is to compulsory purchase 
the harbour in order to take it our of the hands of developers who 
have consistently watched over the degradation of the harbour for 25 
years. If brought into public ownership SOS would seek a sensible 
regeneration of the harbour facilities and permanent protection for 
the beach. The authorities are slowly coming round to our point of 
view. Please help us to protect our small part of the planet by 
signing or petition and/or writing in support via our web site at 
www.soshayle.fsnet.co.uk where you can also find more details of our 
campaign.