After posting photographs of the beach on Holland-On-Sea I have been sent some photographs from a few decades ago.
At Holland Haven looking south. It is clear that the level of sand is much lower, at a guess may be 5 feet lower. Also the breakwaters have not been repaired as most of the boards between the posts have disappeared.
In both photos the sand comes to about the top of the boards that are there. Could recovering the beach be as simple as repairing the breakwaters?
The current photographs were taken at about 11am on Thursday 20 October 2011 when low tide was at about 11:30, though it was a neap tide.
And looking north it is easier to see that
- The breakwaters are quite short.
- There is a pattern of alternating long and short breakwaters.
Just south of Kings Avenue looking north, less sand and broken breakwaters compared to the past.
Considering this is nearly low tide it is amazing how little beach there is.
And looking south you can see there is no sand here at all.
But south of the pier there is a wide beach and the break waters are buried.
And just south of the pier there is still a wide beach. The sand by the wall is dry indicating the sea does not cover it, at least on neap tides.
But immediately north of the pier the beach is lower, narrower and there is no dry sand.
And after 2 breakwaters there is no beach at all.
Remember this about low tide, though on a neap tide.
Further north, towards Holland-On-Sea, the breakwaters seem to be much further apart.
And south of the pier again. The breakwaters are much longer than at Holland-On-Sea.
The wooden breakwaters have boards up to the top of their posts, and are almost completely buried in sand.
It seems to me that the lack of breakwaters has allowed sand to be washed away.
What sand remains is lower, which allows the sea to cover more of the beach at low tide, even all of the beach in some places.
It’s just like the difference between the shallow and deep ends of a swimming pool.
If the beach is not restored then the sea wall wash against the sea wall at all states of the tide, allowing it to erode the sea wall even faster.
Could the solution be to be building longer breakwaters and making sure they are maintained?
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