YP Letters: Still work to be done cleaning up our beaches

I APPLAUD the wise words of Thérèse Coffey, a Minister at Defra, on marine conservation around our shores, a most noble cause (The Yorkshire Post, August 8).

However, I feel that there is still work to be done on cleaning up our beaches for bathing, an activity that has clearly been enjoyed around our shores thanks to all the hot, dry weather this summer.

During the heatwave, I watched horrified from high above the Saltburn beach and the pier as a large slick of effluent drifted across the top of the water, then under the pier and, wind-assisted, came ever closer to the beach on the Redcar side, with any number of bathers in view who quickly dispensed as the dirty water got ever closer to them.

It was then deposited on the beach with the tide. This was not a pretty sight and the dangers not just to Dr Coffey’s much heralded marine life were clear, and of course to the people on the beach, many of whom were children, some too young to see the dangers to health and wellbeing of us humans.

I’m afraid to say not a very good advert for our Yorkshire coast, which the numerous visitors to Victorian Saltburn could hardly have been impressed by.