Toxic sand and piles of litter: why we’ve stopped going to British beaches

Beachgoing in the UK has dropped by 20% - small wonder when there are more faecal particles in the sand than in the muckiest sea

Have we stopped going to the beach? A National Trust survey says there has been a 20% reduction in visits to the coast. Apparently, people even prefer "urban beaches" - such as those in London and Sheffield. For a cyber generation, one can see how the fantasy or ersatz version might be better than the real thing. A blue screen is preferable to a blue horizon. All that sand in your sandwiches. Swarming jellyfish. Voracious, tortoise-murdering gulls. And cold water - I've lost count of the number of people who look at me as if I'm mad when I say I swim in the sea all year round, who proudly tell me they wouldn't consider it even in the height of summer.

Maybe it's an inverted class thing. The "hoi polloi", used to flying off to European resorts or further afield, regard a British holiday as an admission of failure - leaving the coves of Cornwall to the likes of David Cameron and James Cracknell (who last weekend, along with his 11-year-old son, saved a grandfather and grandson from the Devonian waves).

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