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This page was updated on 17th November 2005.

On 8th January 2001 COASTAL RESEARCH notified BBC Spotlight of the threat of storm damage along the parts of the South Devon coast facing East. Craig Rich included the warning in subsequent BBC weather forecasts. Both the Environment Agency and the Met Office were slow to recognise the potential storm effects. The gale raged on Thursday 11th January 2001 and was particularly fierce during the evening Spring High Water. The following morning the loss of a section of road (A379) running along the top of the shingle ridge (North of the village of Torcross) was evident. This section of road is often called the Slapton Line by local people. Devon County Council was faced with a problem. A County Main Road was closed and its future uncertain. Emergency boulders were positioned on the beach to offer some protection from a further bout of bad weather that winter. Local interest groups and politicians were assembled and eventually a group known as the Slapton Line Partnership was formed to consider the future of the road. This was the point at which it became clear that the road was the major focus, not the natural shingle ridge.

A scoping report was prepared by consultant engineers followed by a full report commissioned from another firm of consultant engineers. The full report has been produced in two stages: a consultation document and a final document.

What is apparent from the reports is the absence of an integrated scientific investigation into what caused the road to be washed away. It appears that the public consultation process in the winter of 2004 was primarily to gauge local opinion on what sort of road was wanted. Predictably, most said they wanted the road maintained. This was also the outcome preferred by the main commercial interests in the area.

The warning of nature will have been ignored if, as seems likely, the local authorities go ahead with a form of reinstatement, albeit a few metres landward but still along the shingle ridge. Thus the road will suffer similar destruction again.

The only sustainable solution for the A379 road is to move it to the landward side of Slapton Ley (the freshwater lagoon). Car parks could be provided adjacent to this new road which would enable elderly and infirm visitors to view the shingle ridge and the Ley from a vantage point several tens of metres above sea level. Beach users could be provided with car parks at Torcross and Strete Gate on land that is not subject to sediment processes. The existing road on the shingle ridge, including its foundations, and particularly the mid ridge car park, should be removed. The whole of the ridge on the seaward side of the Ley should be left for pedestrian activity only. In this way the shingle ridge would be able to withstand storm process for a very long time to come.

The causes of the road damage are too complex to be fully explained in a concise web page article, but part of the contributory cause is the excessive unnatural development along the shingle ridge over the last century. The road itself, in its modern form, is a major problem. Few other sections of coastal shingle ridge, also called barrier beaches, in Britain have roads along their summit. Modern road structures inhibit the shingle material on the beach and ridge from responding in an energy absorbing manner during severe storms. In the case of Slapton, the car park near the middle of the ridge is a further problem. This has increased in size since about 1960 and is now an inappropriately rigid structure with its piecemeal wave defence placements on the seaward side. Because of the revenue benefits to South Hams District Council, the mid ridge car park is likely to be considered a holy cow in any long term strategic planning. Within the environs of the car park there is now a public toilet block and the reinstated American War Memorial. Again more materials that do not respond well to storm activity.

On 10th April 2001, COASTAL RESEARCH sent a letter to Devon County Council and South Hams District Council, suggesting that returning the War Memorial to a similar position on the ridge was not sustainable, and perhaps they should consider relocating to a more stable site near Strete Gate or Torcross village. Regretably the War Memorial has now been returned to within a few metres of its original 1954 location. The Memorial commemorates the loss of 749 American troops on 28th April 1944. They were involved in training for the Normandy Landings. Most died when their landing craft were attacked in Lyme Bay by German E-boats. There is, therefore, no locational reason why the Memorial should remain on a site vulnerable to storm damage. Most organisations that erect memorials are keen to see that they endure.

It be will noted that nowhere in this article is any reference made to 'Climate Change'. There is no need at this stage. The problem at Slapton is one of man's interference with natural beach processes - the interaction of random extreme weather, tides and wave action with beach sediments and the topography of the Bay.

The coastline of Start Bay - Hallsands, Beesands and Slapton Sands - has received a large amount of local and scientific interest over the past 110 years. Why has this wealth of knowledge been virtually ignored by modern administrators and contractors? Richard Hansford Worth, writing in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association in 1904, gives us an early insight into the reasons why contractors should not be allowed to meddle with coastal sediments. Unfortunately, his advice was unheeded. Over 600,000 tons of shingle was removed from near Hallsands in 1897, resulting in the beach lowering. Many photographs were taken before, during and after the shingle removal. Sir John Jackson's company was responsible for the removal of the shingle. He had obtained a licence from the Government's Board of Trade to dredge 'gravel' from between the High and Low Water marks in the South of Start Bay to supply aggregate for making the 'new' sections of the naval dockyard at Devonport. The Navy's gain was a loss for Hallsands village. The lack of protective beach material was responsible for the destruction of the village during an easterly storm on 26th January 1917. The cause of the problems were expounded again by Hansford Worth in further papers published in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association in 1909 and 1923. The problems had been clearly and proficiently explained to the country at an early stage, but the Government of the day took no action to stop the removal of the beach sediments.

Is history repeating itself? Many claims have been laid before the Slapton Line Partnership, but there is a hint that public administrators are only focusing on politically acceptable solutions. Unfortunately, the 'acceptable solutions' may not be in the best long term interest. We live at a time when scientific understanding of the physics of our coastal sediments is greater than at any time in history. Is this being adequately applied? Successive governments seem to go to extraordinary lengths, with public funds, to get the sort of technical advice they desire.

The archive of coastal engineering misjudgements recorded by COASTAL RESEARCH grows by the year.

© Copyright 2005, COASTAL RESEARCH.

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