For the first time in weeks it is possible to say that it might be safe to walk along the cliffs and even beaches in and around Bournemouth.
The sensational St Valentine’s Night damage has been very well documented on today’s Echo blog. TheEcho team did a first class job last night and early this morning.
Avon Beach is severely damaged after what is possibly its worst storm since March 1935.
This was the occasion when the sand bar running east from the Black House was swept away. Last night’s storm might have brought some of it back.
Even more interesting has been the constant flooding of Shore Road and Banks Road at the start of the Sandbanks peninsula. The water has sometimes been very deep and today the pavement has been left ripped up. Across the Poole Harbour entrance at Shell Bay there has recently been big movement of sand.
Sandbanks was just a sand bar with some shacks until well into the 20th century. Development, which brought roads and defences, was slow due to fear that the peninsula would be washed away.
In 2010 the Environment Agency forecast sea flooding at Sandbanks within sixty years.
