Surfladle

Pagham Beach near Chichester made the headlines during last winter due to further beach erosion by the constant barrage of storms,  but the true story of what has been happening there over the past twenty five years is the real worry for the residents.
 

I have a personal interest in the place as it became  my home beach for three fantastic summers (1991 to 1993)  when I was teaching windsurfing at a lake on a large campsite in Chichester, which at that time was known as Southern Leisure (now part of the Bourne Leisure Group). Prior to that my earliest sailing experiences of Pagham were in the mid eighties (prior to the storm of 87) when the bay was full of moored boats during the summer months (great fun zig zagging your way through them). I liked the place so much that I almost bought one of the old bungalows right next to the Yacht Club situated in the centre of the beach.. but a chap called Bill Dawes beat me to it (sadly Bill knocked it down and built what I have always called The Church of Dawes in its place).
 

In recent years Pagham became a Mecca for windsurfers looking for side shore wave sailing conditions in a southerly wind, as it is the only location on this part of the south coast. Sadly, due to it being overwhelmed by the numbers arriving.. we have to say that it did not endear them to the residents of the private road which lead to the now closed Nature Reserve Car Park.

So, to cut a very long story short that is why I took interest when chatting , as we do, in the shop with a couple who live close to Pagham and had recently visited it. Julian and Elaine had themselves been pretty shocked by the amount of change they have witnessed and this is not so much to do with storm erosion during last winter but more with the natural repositioning of the harbours mouth/entrance. I am not going to go into how many times it has moved over the years but when I was there the harbour mouth flowed straight out into the sea at the far end of the car park and the shingle bar was not even visible at low tide (you would find it with your fin though on days when the waves were reasonably big and sucked up on the bar :).

So take a look at the pictures and if you have not been there for a while..you may be quite shocked (sorry they are small but there are larger versions on our Gallery)! My sincere thanks to Julian and Elaine for taking the time to send the pictures over to us and if you would like to have a look at other parts of our coastlines problems.. take a look at this website   http://www.se-coastalgroup.org.uk/our-coastline/

Danny
 

All Photos courtesy of Elaine Taylor. Larger versions are on our Gallery