I OFFER the following thoughts for consideration in response to last week's letter concerning the apparent loss of our beaches. I would be pleased to receive emails should readers wish to further discuss this or related topics.

Now that the Fal and Helford estuaries have been given the rare designation of candidate Special Area of Conservation, it is very relevant to widely discuss what is needed for the management of this "jewel" in Cornwall's crown.

Evidence from case studies suggests that it is normal for beaches to wax and wane over a number of years. However, where there has been the removal of offshore materials as a result of human interference, this has previously tipped the balance to one of overall erosion. The sand that is on our beaches has generally cycled to and from the offshore seabed. If this sand or shingle is dredged for profit, the beaches will eventually be threatened. There will be no material to replace that lost to erosion.

This was amply demonstrated by the example of the small fishing village of Hallsands, near Start Point in Devon. In 1896 the then Board of Trade granted a licence for shingle to be dredged from the Skerries Bank, just offshore from Hallsands. Some 650,000 tons of shingle was removed for the construction of a new dockyard at Plymouth. Early complaints from local residents and politicians went unheeded.

In 1917, some 20 years after dredging commenced, 38 of the 39 houses in Hallsands were washed into the seas as a result of catastrophic erosion caused by a combination of easterly winds and exceptional high tides.

Locally, Falmouth Harbour Commissioners issue two licences to dredge for Maerl sand. These currently permit the removal of 36,000 tons annually from within Carrick roads for which the FHC receive fees slightly in excess of £20,000. One of these licences has been renewed annually since 1975. Potentially therefore, more than one million tons of Maerl sand could have been removed under the licences during these 29 years. If only 60 per cent has actually been taken, that is still an equivalent tonnage to the Hallsands disaster.

Maerl sand is, however, less dense than shingle. The Hallsands shingle occupied just less that 300,000 cubic metres. A 60 per cent take of Maerl sand would have removed 500,000 cubic metres locally. If all the licensed volume had been dredged there would be 800,000 cubic metres less seabed in the Falmouth area. The possible volumes already removed would represent two and a half times that lost from the South Devon coast.

There are many anecdotal reports from long-term Falmothians that beaches have disappeared. Certainly St Just, Trefusis, Flushing, Castle Beach and the beaches below Rosemullion have been severely impacted. Some photographs also bear such testimony. Interestingly, the very recent storms (Easterly with exceptional high tides) have thrown up new orange Maerl sand onto the beaches at Trefusis and Flushing, although the cliffs at Trefusis and many sections of stone wall along the Flushing beach have collapsed, and protective shoreside trees and bushes have been poisoned by the salt water.

We should not be surprised that it takes such a 25-year storm to return a little sand once again from the substantially excavated seabed of Carrick Roads. A casual look at local charts begs explanation for the extensive deeper areas just of Trefusis Point. Could this and the dredging of the western channel approaches be the reason for the two-metre high waves that I saw battering this area a few weeks ago? Perhaps the four times flooded residents of Flushing would have been more reassured had a shallower seabed been retained to attenuate the impact of severe storms.

Maybe local people should now be asking the Falmouth Harbour Commissioners whether their small pot of "gold" is worth the "candle." So little gain for potentially so much destruction, and we haven't yet started to discuss the impact upon marine wildlife.

John Ellis, Restormel Terrace, Falmouth (member, Fal cSAC advisory group)