A usually quiet beachside spot near the grand old Mary Stanford former lifeboat house recently hosted a little summer gathering. Party-goers dragged rusting, crumbling metal barricades from outside the lifeboat house, arranged them carefully, pulled up seakale plants to get some shade for their party ‘shack’, and apparently had a blast.
Beer cans, pop bottles, food wrappers scattered about attest to what must have been a fine time had by all. Nice one, visitors to Rye Harbour beach. Your rubbish is scattering to the wind. Rusted, dangerous metal is waiting now for some exploring child to happen upon, and residents and nature reserve visitors are disgusted with you.
Hello Summer! Bring your own beer and appalling manners. No pigs allowed.
Image Credits: D. Mueller .
There has recently been an online petition to try to raise the minimum fine for littering to £1,000 from a nominal amount. Not exactly sure how easy it is for the police and authorities to implement these fines, as it is so difficult to work out who, from a group of people, is responsible.
I’m no Miss Marple but judging from the low height of the structure I’d say that was kids and therefore probably local unless a visiting mum and dad dropped them out of a car for a few hours. Hard to pay a huge fine if you’re a tweeny. Suggest they be found and made to clean up, replant and maybe put in a few extra hours picking up litter.
As it happens, before it was possible to get down there again with a friend to get this stuff cleaned up properly, the tides had swept all away, general rubbish as well as the dangerous rusted metal. When we got back to do a cleanup, as best we could, we found a couple of the rusty metal parts wrapped around a couple of the disintegrating remains of the wooden groins. We hauled them back up to where they came from i.e. leaned up against the side of the old life boat house. That was all we could locate during that day.
A few days later at low tide, we found more of the sharp, rusted metal parts [presumed to have been assembled on the beach,as per the photo, by those who left the party mess] half-buried in the exposed sand. We managed to dig it out then dragged it back the life boat house, from where had been moved to the beach.
The total removal of the rusted metal detritus from the side of the Mary Stanford Life Boat House would require pickup with a vehicle that has permitted access to the narrow roadway passing by this forsaken monument. If anyone knows who / what organisation this might be, it would be a good idea to contact them. I am not aware of any such individual or organisation. If he / she / it does exist, perhaps they could make a visit to the old Lifeboat House once in a while to assess the state of rubbish there. Then perhaps they would care to get any rubbish removed from time to time. The pile of rusty metal stuff has been out there for many, many months, if not years. Indeed, it is more or less a permanent feature.
Is there a chance an enterprising artist could turn it into an art installation. Perhaps a small grant from Jempsons foundation charity.
Or do you mean the rusty, dangerous metal bits etc, around the old Lifeboat house? I can’t help but think that any Jempson’s charitable funds might be better directed to e.g. the provision of a suitable vehicle to take away the junk! Getting a few folks together to gather up the stuff should be easy.