Save our CoastLine Petition

The National Trust for Jersey has organised a Petition “to Save Our Coastline”. I circulated a WhatsApp post encouraging all Members of the Jersey Canoe Canoe Club to sign. Included in the positive responses I received was one from Andy Sibcy , a skilful paddler and editor of the “Jersey Evening Post”. He asked me to explain why Members of the Jersey Canoe Club were signing up to the Petition,

I responded :

“As sea kayakers the coastline is incredibly valuable to us. Jersey’s coast is truly unique. There are caves differentially eroded according to rock type. There are hidden surf beaches like Belcroute. The Foreshore, the drying out zone between the high and low tide levels, is up to a quarter as big as the Island itself, so in the different seasons and at the different states of the tide the coast is constantly changing.

You can sit in channels in the wave cut platforms off La Rocque and L’Etacq and be pushed in your kayak up the channel, riding the rising tide. There are streams like at White Rock where the tide runs ,like a river, parallel to the coast. There are offshore reefs and defensive sites.

Valuable yes, but threatened. The National Trust for Jersey and the States of Jersey worked together to return the site of the former Pontins Holiday Camp at Plémont to heathland above the cliffs.

However there are now homes quite out of scale with their location, and unsympathetic to the local building style, at Portelet , to the south of St Brelade’s Church, at Petit Port, at Le Scez and between Gorey and Anne Port.

The reclamation Site at La Colette has been pushed out into the sea, creating a straight barrier from which the sea bounces. As well as being less attractive than it used to be, it makes crossing, say from Elizabeth Castle towards Green Island, more committing and more dangerous for paddlers. That is why Members of Jersey Canoe Club have signed the Petition of the National Trust for Jersey to Save our Coastline. We hope as many Islanders as possible will sign up to this Petition. The plan is to join hands around the coast. Kayakers will do so along the remotest stretches of the Coast, reaching the parts others cannot reach”

Most of what I wrote appeared as “News” on Page 2 of the JEP, describing me as Spokesman for the Club, a new appointment!

I posted the cutting on my FaceBook page urging any reader, not just paddlers and not just Island residents, to sign up to the Petition which is easily accessible on http://www.nationaltrust.je/save-our-coastline. My post was accompanied by the photos which appear below.

So this is a posting containing a post containing a post, but all promoting a very valuable cause.