Life is a beach on our coastline
Warning to get right people in place
The internet’s “Urban Dictionary” says the popular phrase “life’s a beach” is a polite corruption of the slightly ruder version - “life’s a bitch”.
But for thousands of Ayrshire folk, life really is a beach – that great big, beautiful coastline that starts somewhere north of Gailes and ends somewhere south of Girvan.
And while not everyone lives beside it, drives past it, walks their dog along it, takes their kids to play on it or even earns a living through it – we are all stakeholders in its wellbeing.
A few months ago, this column suggested that our coast was so important, it needed a special group with a special set of powers to look after it.
I was looking for a kind “Baywatch” . . . but in reverse.
In the TV series, the first responders stand on the shoreline, look out to sea – and rescue those in distress.
We need a group of empowered individuals who would stand on the shoreline, and look INLAND at problems – and then take the necessary action.
And they don’t even need to wear little red swimsuits!
If we did have some kind of coastal watchdog, they would have been baring their teeth last week - with FOUR shoreline stories in the news.
First up, and perhaps the most serious, is the introduction of beach car parking charges at Troon, Prestwick and Ayr.
The £ 1- an- hour tickets are part of a “bite- the- bullet” fall- out from the recent budget cuts.
And while most of us would accept that the charges are a softer option to some of the more bloodletting budget proposals – they will still have a ripple effect.
Troon councillor, Peter Convery, rightly raises the issue of who is going to monitor and enforce these charges?
Who is going to dutifully put a £ 1 coin in the pay- and- display machine – if the car owners on either side have chosen not to bother?
And if wardens need to be hired – at inflated weekend pay rates – are these costs included in the extra £ 90,000 a year revenue forecasts?
Another side affect will be alternative parking. When Ayr’s Blackburn car park erected a Checkpoint Charlie pay kiosk in the seventies – hundreds of drivers simply clogged up nearby streets where the parking was free.
On a hot Glasgow Fair weekend, when maw, paw and the weans from Barrhead have blocked your driveway – who do you call for assistance?
Next up for our coastal watchdogs would be the play tower on Ayr’s seafront.
The popular attraction has been suddenly shut down after a routine inspection found a number of “health and safety risks”.
Councillor Ian Cochrane says they have taken “the responsible decision to close off the equipment”.
I’m just asking who was “responsible” for all the routine inspections that have gone before? When was the last one?
And was any deterioration reported?
It’s a wooden structure after all. Could a squad of joiners not have put this right last year - or the year before?
Or is this another a case of council owned property being left to rot to the point of dangerous dilapidation? But hey ho – not to worry. In these hard times of budget cuts – we’re going to spend over a quarter of a million pounds on a new one!
Meanwhile, over on page four, we read that an illegal encampment of travellers have been leaving human waste and toilet paper on the dunes at Seafield.
But hey ho – not to worry. Turn to page twenty eight and read how the Rotary Clubs of Girvan, Alloway, Ayr, Prestwick and Troon are planning their annual shoreline clean- up on April 7!
Yes – life’s a beach alright.
But it will be a bitch until we have the right people with the right powers to preserve and protect our priceless coastline.
We need right people with right powers to preserve and protect our coastline