Beesands
Beesands today
Beesands is located seven and half miles south west of Dartmouth on the A379. Today this small village is only a single row of cottages behind a one mile long shingle beach but it has a village green a pub and a shop. Tourism is the main industry but once Beesands was a busy fishing village. Records show that boats laden with fish and shellfish were drawn up the beach almost to the cottages. At the end of the century there were dozens of boats operating off Beesands beach and six to eight tons of crabs went to Billingsgate market each week during the summer.
The foreshore at Beesands, and the village's protection behind rip rap and a full re-curved sea wall. This area has the fishing boats and crab pots laid out.
The beach grades steeply down over the rip rap. The western end of the beach road has a further collection of small dingles and an impressive quantity of rip rap.
Land Use Sketch
Cost Benefit Analysis
To protect the village of bessands, lots of money is needed to pay for the sea defences. The Rip-Rap at bessands is 254metres long, and costs £3,000/ metre to buy, meaning that for Rip-Rap at Beesands it costs £726,000.
At Beesands there is also a curved sea wall. This costs £3500/ metre and the Length of the Sea Wall is 254metres. This means to have the sea wall at beesands costs £889,000. In addition to this, there are many Gabions, costing £100 per metre.
In beesands, the property is also very expensive. For Residential properties it costs 150,000 per floor, and there are 25 houses (2 floors). For Commercial properties it costs 170,000 per floor, and there are 4 businesses (3x 2floors, 1x1floor). This means the cost of Residential properties is £7,500,000. For Commercial properties it costs £1,900,000. Overall, the total value of properties in Beesands is £9,400,000.
I will now find out if the value of the properties outweighs the costs of protecting, by subtracting the cost of the sea defences from the total financial value of properties.
Sea Defences Total = £1,615,100.
Property Total = £9,400,000.
£9,400,000 - £1,615,100 = £7,784,900.
As you can see, the answer is zero or above, so the value of the properties outweigh the cost of the sea defences which shows the defences are very beneficial (a positive CBA).
Torcross
Torcross is a small village at the southern end of Slapton Sands, a narrow strip of coastal road and shingle beach separating Slapton Ley from Start Bay. It is now well known as the beach where many lives were lost during rehearsals for the D-Day landings in 1944 and there is a memorial tank, which was recovered from the sea.
Torcross has survived some terrible storms that have battered the village, on enormous waves washed over the roofs of the dwellings causing substantial damage, lorry loads of boulders were brought in from the area as temporary protection, a new curved was built as a result of this 1979 storm. On January 11th and 12th 2001 another bad storm caused the loss of up to five metres of the beachhead along a stretch of beach about 1000 metres in length. Part of the A379 road along Slapton Sands near the village was also detroyed, closing it for three months, 3,000 tons of boulders were initially used to protect the road, however these were later removed because of damage to the Slapton Ley .
The maintenance of the road is imperative to Torcross as it is the main access route to Dartmouth for the villagers and the local businesses. The South Hams District Council is working to keep the A379 from being eroded away by road realignment and the importing of shingle from parts of Slapton Sands that have a surplus. A study by after the 2001 storm confirmed that Slapton Sands is and will continue to retreat backwards, due to the reduction in the amount of shingle available, increasing frequency of storms and a predicted 30 to 40 cm rise in sea level over the next 50 years.
Torcross has survived some terrible storms that have battered the village, on enormous waves washed over the roofs of the dwellings causing substantial damage, lorry loads of boulders were brought in from the area as temporary protection, a new curved was built as a result of this 1979 storm. On January 11th and 12th 2001 another bad storm caused the loss of up to five metres of the beachhead along a stretch of beach about 1000 metres in length. Part of the A379 road along Slapton Sands near the village was also detroyed, closing it for three months, 3,000 tons of boulders were initially used to protect the road, however these were later removed because of damage to the Slapton Ley .
The maintenance of the road is imperative to Torcross as it is the main access route to Dartmouth for the villagers and the local businesses. The South Hams District Council is working to keep the A379 from being eroded away by road realignment and the importing of shingle from parts of Slapton Sands that have a surplus. A study by after the 2001 storm confirmed that Slapton Sands is and will continue to retreat backwards, due to the reduction in the amount of shingle available, increasing frequency of storms and a predicted 30 to 40 cm rise in sea level over the next 50 years.
Issues for the future
There are many issues surrounding the future of Beesands, Hallsands and Torcross. Even though many measures have been taken to assure the safety of these villages, many threats still worry the villagers.
I think that we should invest on repairing old coastal defences, because there could be a flood/storm in the same area where the coastal defence is shattered. This would lead to a catastrophe which could have easily been avoided.
Also, I think we should invest in new coastal defences. We should buy more advanced, stronger and better defences to assure the people living by the coast of no damage if a storm ever does rage. The expenses of this would certainly be worth while, as it could prevent a lot of damage and even human life.
If the villagers were to not build or repair the sea defences, and let nature take its causes, they could risk their homes, loved ones and their whole village being wiped out.