Andrew Hamilton’s letter last week raised the question “what are we to do about the A379 at Slapton”?

I hope he will be reassured to know that the “small diversion” he mentions, due to reopen in the autumn, is in fact a full reinstatement of the road retreated back from the new shoreline.

There has also been a process of planning for the future, underway over the past 18 months though creation of something called a beach management plan.

To create this there has been a number of public consultation events and appeals for suggestions via this newspaper and social media.

Ideas were received from the public and have been evaluated including a new road as per Andrew’s proposal.

Most of the ‘engineering solutions’ prove to be extremely expensive; a new road would cost tens of millions of pounds – aside from any issues about building in this sensitive area. Hence the options likely to be taken forward include repair of existing defences and retreating the road as we are currently doing.

Where possible and where funds are available it is also likely that the inland roads will be improved, but as much of the length of these are single track, they will always be somewhat restricted.

The latest information about the plans to reinstate the road, the timetable for this and how the future draft plan has been developed is on the slaptonline.org website.

Information will be displayed at the Field Studies Centre beach trailer at Torcross over the summer and at the road contractor’s site office in the memorial car park during the forthcoming works.

Alan Denbigh

Chairman

Slapton Line Partnership Follaton House, Totnes