Sand storm
CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN
The late and sadly long-forgotten C. E. M. Thad once referred to British seaside resorts as 'the drainage system.' He meant that they dutifully drained off hoi polloi and left the countryside to the intellectual nature-lover. Today, with sewage outfalls, oil pollution, Army detritus and the keep Britain untidy gang at work, Joad's drains are in danger of getting blocked. The 'Torrey Canyon' affair is really no more than a concentrated, spectacular sample of what the seaside is likely to become generally in the next few years unless some determined, drastic and universal action is taken.
Before the oil tanker ran aground on the Seven Stones, British seaside resort authorities had already had their noses rubbed into their stinking beaches by James Tye and his egregious British Safety Council. In the past few years these hard-pressed but not noticeably effective volunteers have also had to contend with the beats and the weekend forays by punch-up fans. So as the tide goes out for the holiday resorts en this side of the North Sea and Channel, and sweeps strongly up the beaches of the Costa
Brava, the Adriatic and the Cote d'Azur, the cost of keeping our sands golden inexorably rises.
The question is, who is to pay for the broken deckchairs, the sieving out of the beaches the broken bottles, discarded plastic all-sorts and family rubbish, the expensive sewage treatment plants, the lifeguards that exist only on a few British beaches, and now the removal of oil and tar? A prize-winning essay submitted to the Institute of Economic Affairs in a recent competition for young economists on the sub- ject of pricing as a means of making the most of resources, raised the vexed question of pay- ing for beach use. As this essay has yet to be published there has been no storm of protest from Britons who, as the writer, a teacher from Broadstairs, says, regard the seaside as a natural resource to which they should have free access. Unfortunately for this basic rights of man ap- proach, the holidaymaker also expects his beach and sea to be clean, well organised and supplied with that assortment of clutter known as ameni- ,. ties. The author points out, among many other things, that the seaside user likes to have lava- tories within child-carrying distance, but hates the idea of paying for them. So the resorts lose thousands of pounds a year providing them, and have to get some of it back from the rate- payers.
There are some startling facts in this essay, apart from the telling statistic that two-thirds of our visitors from abroad came from the Con- tinent last year (about one million), but that of the five million Britishers who took holidays out of the country most of them went to the Con- tinent. Put that down partly to the weather, the food and wanderlust, but partly also to the dis- mal effect on the holiday spirits of an over- crowded resort (the high season lasts little more than the eight weeks of July and August) with unimaginative 'amenities' and spattered with restrictions such as no 'private' chairs, no motor-cars, no fishing, no bathing during cer- tain hours, and above all the licensing laws about which nobody below God and the Prime Minister can do anything.
Apart from raising charges for minor beach facilities, like windbreaks and deckchairs, to cover losses, the essayist, Mr W. D. Peppiatt, proposes a system of beach charges and/or tour- ist taxes akin to those used in some continental resorts. Shocking as this may sound, the benefits could be immense, especially if beaches were reserved to those prepared to pay an economic price for clean sand and water, beach huts, boats, diving rafts and whatever other pleasures an intelligent local authority liked to devise. British catering being what it is (such conces- sions always seem to go to the Forte-type pro- duction line contractor with his prefabricated foods), picnics should be permitted to day- ticket holders. As for children, I fear that they would have to be charged double (not the con- ventional half) or else confined to an accident- free, well supervised, stretch of their own.
The truth about the Polaroid log jam has now been vouchsafed. They were too successful last season with the Swinger, the ten guinea instant- picture wonder, and their processing contractor in Aberdeen could not cope with enlargement orders. They will open a new laboratory in June. Even then they will not blow Swinger pies up to the 10 by 8 inches size because the grain is too coarse. As consolation to disgruntled cus- tomers they say in Welwyn that the turn-round of prints is faster via the us than it had become in Scotland, that quality is better, sizes are larger but that prices are the same. If only they had said all that in the circular letter that started all the fuss among their fans.
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