Pensioner banned from putting sand on a beach

A pensioner has been threatened with prison or a £50,000 fine if he takes windblown sand back to the beach where it came from.

Arthur Bulmer’s seafront garden became carpeted after a week of storms swept tons of sand from the beach across the road.

It seemed like common sense to shovel it into his wheelbarrow and take it back, load by load, to its rightful place.

But the local council did not share Mr Bulmer's idea of logic.

Doing that, they told him, would class as fly-tipping, for which the maximum penalty is a £50,000 fine or six months in jail.

Oh, and he would also have his wheelbarrow confiscated.

Mr Bulmer, a widower with four grandchildren, has now paid £500 for a private firm to take away the sand. But he is aware that a few nights of heavy wind would bring it all back. "It took two men seven hours to clear the sand from my front garden," he said.

"The sand is not my property. It has just invaded my garden. We want the local authority to show some common sense and help us do something about this problem.

"I can’t understand their logic. They say I can't return the sand from where it came from because it is contaminated once it has left the beach.

"But when their own workmen scoop it off the roads they put it back, contaminated or not.”

You couldn’t make this stuff up.