REG LITTLE, of Fore Street, Kingswear, writes:

I attended the preliminary meeting regarding Lighthouse beach recently in Kingswear Hall, accompanied by my wife.

The delivery of the speakers was most disappointing as I am hard of hearing, my wife who is not deaf made the same complaint and so did many others afterwards. I would also like to say that I feel sure there were more, perhaps many more, than 30 people there, as reported in the Dartmouth Chronicle.

I am 85 years old and came to Kingswear when I was five years old in 1932.

Looking round at the meeting, I didn't see many people who would have known about Lighthouse beach in the 1930s, 40s, 50s or 60s, but feel grateful that so many people who have arrived since are prepared to stand up for Kingswear over this matter.

As a child, I spent a lot of time at Lighthouse beach and I learnt to swim, taught by the then headmistress of Kingswear School, all of whose pupils learned to swim there.

Families used to go there with picnics and spend most of the day, as the tide didn't come right up except at spring tides.

As a Scout master, I also took the Scouts there. Also Sea Scouts used the beach.

It was the only beach in Kingswear not closed during the war. The adjacent beach, Baker's beach, was private and we respected that. The house had been built on the private beach.

When I retired in 1990, while out walking one day in about 1999, I saw a notice on the gate of the right of way leading to the beach reading 'Closed'.

I rang Devon County Council as I knew it was a right of way and was given the path number. I was told that rights of way could only be closed by an Act of Parliament.

I saw the parish council chairman and he told me it had allowed it to be closed to 'stop the grockles (holidaymakers) going on it.'

I told him that if you discriminate between people you will end up by stopping everybody, which is, of course, exactly what has happened.

Shortly before this my wife and I had bought a plot of land and built a house. The chairman of the council asked how we would like people walking through our garden. I replied that I would never have bought a piece of land with a right of way across it.

The beach has been used by the public for far more than 100 years.

One very elderly resident of Kingswear, Bill Knapman, now deceased, told me his mother had learnt to swim there as a child with the school. There have been three landslips there to my knowledge, all repairs for which were carried out by the council on each occasion.

I hope this letter will illustrate how dear to the heart of Kingswear people has been the opportunity to have use of Lighthouse beach.