I learned to swim in warm, tropical seas and though the English Channel is my only option these days, I love it. The local sea area from Beachy Head to Hastings pier was recently declared a Marine Conservation Zone and has amongst many other delights, rare chalk reefs, seahorses, dogfish, many spawning species of fish and rock boring piddocks who glow in the dark!
Our beaches are stony at high tide, covered in a fascinating variety of smooth, rounded pebbles from common flints and chert to quartz, jasper and indeterminate geodes with tiny crystals glistening in their crevices.
Low waters reveal gleaming sands for building castles and canals, there is the remains of a shipwreck, the Amsterdam which foundered in 1749, a petrified forest and rockpools with a myriad tiny seashells and creatures all enjoyed by locals and holidaymakers alike. The clean waters and beaches have been a huge joy for us all during two Covid summers, until earlier this month.
At the height of the summer holiday, swimming became unwise and unsafe. A major sewage spill near the railway track at Bulverhythe flooded beach-huts, contaminated many miles of sea and beach. Southern Water, whose responsibility it is, spend as little as possible on maintaining the infrastructure whilst awarding their grandees and shareholders huge bonuses from the charges which we have to pay to them, to get fresh water and sewerage.
To say the people who live here are angry is an insulting understatement. Our Marine Conservation Zone is contaminated, beach hut owners lose their prized huts, the Hastings beach-launched fishing fleet may have to go elsewhere and many tourists surely will so many local livelihoods are threatened.
Is this the price we must pay, to live on a fairly crowded island, surrounded by waters which though beautiful are a mere pawn in political games and uncared for by capitalism? It damned well shouldn't be!
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