A group of surfers from Englands south coast need your help to save their wave..Please sign this petition
Surfers of Newhaven and Seaford have launched a campaign opposing a the planning application that could destroy their local wave. As waves go it is no Desert Point, but it is the furthest up the coast the Atlantic swells reach and these guys local break. It is also the only sand bottom break in the area. If the development goes ahead the surfers of will have no where local to go. Imagine that at your local?
The Save Our Wave community action group represents the significant surfing, recreational water sports and beach communities in Newhaven and the surrounding areas. The group was set up in response to the potentially damaging Newhaven Port expansion development and subsequent loss of the community amenity beach at Tidemills.
Jon Spong and his son Levi share their first wave together. Pretty special!
Save Our Wave is concerned that the extensive surfing and recreational water sports community at Tidemills, were not adequately consulted of this potentially damaging development. Surfers and recreational water sports communities have failed to be identified as stakeholders by NPP. The value of the breaking wave and the potential for impact on the surfing resource has not been identified and investigated in any impact studies.
The Save Our Wave campaign launched an online petition and received just over 3,000 signatures within 2 weeks. This groundswell of public and water sports support highlights the value of the wave resource and demonstrates the community’s desire to register their concern. Together these stakeholders seek to protect our natural sporting resource, amenity space and our community’s natural capital whilst providing a voice to the significant concerns within the Newhaven community, at the destructive and publicly restrictive impact of this development upon the east beach.
The Save Our Wave group believe the benefits of preserving the surf break, which only exists in the first 800m of the west end of Seaford Bay, extend far beyond the economic value and must include the intrinsic value. These benefits reach outside of the surfing community and will filter across multiple sectors. The surfing wave is hugely important as part of Newhaven and Seaford’s portfolio of tourism resources as well as contributing to a general culture of health and wellbeing in the area.
Sussex has an ever growing surf community with scarce few breaks over sand on which it is safer for newcomers to learn and valuable for intermediate and expert surfers. The closest sand surf break is eastward by 30 miles and Newhaven is the last and most westward sand break in England to be reached by the Atlantic swells.
Save Our Wave is calling for:
1. Appropriate monitoring and modelling to identify the baseline surfing conditions and to model how the proposed development might impact of the wave resource. Save Our Waves would be willing to supply a range of wave height, period and swell directions that are of value to the community.
2. Appropriate mitigation is developed, with consultation with the surfing and recreational water sports community including; the potential to adapt the harbour expansion designs to reduce the potential impact of the development. And appropriate beach re-nourishment programmes to ensure any reduction in sediment levels are avoid.
They are also requesting that the following two reports produced by Surfers Against Sewage, documenting the intrinsic value of waves and of surfing be read and considered as part of the planning consultation.
http://saveourwave.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/sas-war-waves-are-resources-report.pdf
http://saveourwave.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/SAS-Economic-Impact-of-domestic-surfing-on-the-UK-small.pdf