Brean beach is to remain temporarily closed to vehicles in an effort to discourage visitors during the national lockdown, parish councilors have decided this week.
At a virtual meeting of Brean Parish Council on Monday (February 1st), councillors voted to keep the beach shut to vehicles for another two weeks.
Parking on the beach will not be allowed — and the entrance onto the beach has been closed off with signs, as pictured here.
Chairman Trevor Hicks said he’d received three emails about the closure: “The Warren Road residents would like the entrance closed to try and deter people who are not following Covid rules from coming to Brean.”
“Another email is from a Warren Road resident who wants the access left open as they believe it is safer for people to park on the beach than park in the car park at Brean Down.”
“We’ve also had an email from Berrow Residents who say they enjoy walking along the beach and find it very difficult to use the footpaths and have put forward a compromise for us to look at closing the beach at weekends and leave it open during the week.”
“The beach manager says there have been 30-40 people every day at weekends, mainly older local people, who like to park on the beach. A lot have parked on the road outside and I saw that Brean Farm’s gate way was being used and comments were made. With Burnham being busy, people were coming out our way.”
“Some people want the beach closed, some want it open. Parking is an issue and a lot of people are coming down and using the car parks – and that’s causing a few issues.”
“I also had a session with the Police to get their view on the situation. The Police are very grateful to us – they understand that it’s the council’s decision to open or close – but they are thankful we have closed it for the past two weeks. It’s a fine decision between people breaking the rules and allowing them to exercise freely. Their preference is for us to keep it closed for another two weeks to avoid diluting the message about ‘please stay local’ and ‘don’t travel to go to the beach’. It’s felt that if we re-open now it would dilute that message. I feel therefore we should keep it closed and review it in another two weeks’ time.”
Cllr Mike Chatterton added: “I agree, if the Police have said ‘keep it closed’, I think we should keep it closed.”
Parish councillors agreed the extension of the closure and decided to review the situation on Friday 12th February following further discussions with local Police.
