Rain halts Sidmouth beach activities

THE heavens opened during a beach clean-up in Sidmouth last weekend, forcing organisers to pull the plug on two of the days events.

Organised by Youth-futures, a spin-off group of Sustainable Sidmouth, the successful beach clean-up was held on Sunday.

But despite the bravado of the 30 people who turned up, a rock pool investigation and a wild food foraging event, due to be held that day, were cancelled.

Louise Woolley, leader of Youth-futures, said: "We just set off when the rain came in and everybody struggled to the end of the beach.

"It was just horrendous and it didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon.

"Some of the kids did do a bit of rock pooling but it wasn't a proper investigation-we couldn't even get any books out because of the weather!"

The team of litter pickers cleaned the beach in an hour-and-a-half and by the end had ten big bags of rubbish.

This was the second beach clean-up event organised by the group and Louise said more un-biodegradable waste was found this time.

She added: "We found a much larger amount of rubbish which had come from both the sea and from human deposition on the beach, including a large amount of bottle tops.

"We also found sandals, socks and even a pair of boxer shorts!"

The rock pool investigation and wild food foraging will be rearranged for a suitable day, when the weather is better and the tide times tie in.

Louise said: "It was still very positive. Everyone was in good spirits and got stuck in.

"I would like to thank everyone who turned up and hopefully we will have some new members joining us."

Anyone who would like to join the group can email Louise at louisewoolley@hotmail.co.uk.