I UNDERSTAND that three young people were rescued when they were trapped by the tide at Castle Cove beach.

The Friends of Castle Cove have been campaigning for a year to get the steps to the beach reinstated.

We are drawing up a scheme to rebuild the steps, which we will soon be presenting to the landowners and the relevant authorities.

We intend to fundraise ourselves to pay for new steps and repair the footpath.

If we can do it quickly enough then hopefully it will be in time to prevent future potentially dangerous incidents on the beach.

We are getting support from Weymouth and Portland Borough Council and Dorset County Council, but we are still having problems with the status of the beach.

On the one hand, it’s privately owned. On the other hand, it’s coastal access land, which means that the public have a right to walk on it.

This results in some odd situations, for example last week, when volunteer students from Budmouth College did a beach clean and removed 55 bags of rubbish.

Because the steps were closed, the Friends of Castle Cove Beach had to break the law to lug the 55 bags up the slope and along the closed footpath from the beach, then dispose of all 55 bags by numerous trips to the tip. It would have been helpful here if we could have asked a Council to dispose of the rubbish for us.

The situation will get better, and we are confident that we will find a way of getting safe public access to the beach again.

But it might be helpful if both councils could find a way of acknowledging that the beach, although privately-owned, is a public asset and the public have a right to roam there.

Steve Elsworth

Friends of Castle Cove Beach