Spurn Point bus service reaches end of the line

For the past decade thousands of visitors have travelled every summer along the bumpy road to Spurn Point, the base for the Humber Lifeboat.

But the service now stops at the start of the three-mile road up the peninsula, as the road has become increasingly impassable, due to high tides dumping sand on the track. Last week the RNLI said the fragility of the road meant families would have to move to the mainland, ending a tradition that began 201 years ago.

The Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday service, funded by East Riding Council, will still continue to operate between Withernsea, via Patrington and Easington to Kilnsea, from Good Friday to the end of October, but now terminates at Spurn Point Visitor Centre. Passengers can walk the rest of the way to Spurn.

“It’s extremely sad, but inevitable,” said community environment officer Adam Fowler, of the City of Hull & Humber Environment Forum.

The Point itself is fairly stable – the foundations of Smeaton’s 1766 lighthouse can still be seen south of the present lighthouse. But the northern end is getting narrower and last year the service was out of action for three weeks after high tides washed up large amounts of sand from the beach. Since Roman times around three miles of land is thought to have been lost to the sea, including dozens of villages.

Mr Fowler said: “This is not the end of Spurn Point, just a new beginning and twist in its long fascinating history.”