Residents campaign to stop council removing 'accessible' beach steps

VILLAGERS are fighting plans to remove a set of steps which have been used for more than 30 years to reach their local beach.

- by MAXINE DENTON

The group in Praa Sands is aiming to save the “middle steps” from the village green down to the shore.

The bottom few steps were washed away by a storm last year and a substantial amount of sand also disappeared, leaving a drop to the beach.

Instead of replacing the missing steps, however, Cornwall Council then decided to remove the entire structure, citing concerns over public safety.

In response, some Praa Sands residents have launched a campaign to save the steps.

Jon Matthews, one of the group, said the council had installed a new set of wooden steps farther down the beach but these were less accessible and posed a risk to the dunes.

“You have to walk through scrub-land dunes and it’s completely inaccessible for a lot of people’, he said.

“Because the steps were put in the dunes, we've seen a lot of erosion to the dunes, because they’ve never had so many people walking through them.

“There are steps on the other end of the beach but the beach is about a mile long and those steps are about a third of a mile away.

“Also, someone pointed out that the air ambulance regularly lands on the green in the summer and if there's a casualty in the mid-beach area the poor crew have to carry their stretchers and heavy equipment an extra couple of hundred yards down the beach to get there.”