CAMPAIGNERS are calling on the city council to stop cleaning a popular beach because they say it is shrinking.
Residents say the tractors used to clean Cramond Beach contribute to erosion – causing the beach to lose half a metre a year – and destroy wildlife habitats.
But the council says the public expect the well-used beach to be kept clean and that its
cleaning equipment meets environmental standards.
The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) is supporting the call to return to cleaning the beach by hand.
The charity's Scottish Projects Officer, Anne Saunders, said volunteers were keen to discuss beach cleaning with the council.
She said: "It's great that the council clean it regularly, but we understand they do it mechanically. This means natural items such as seaweed and driftwood, which are an important part of the beach ecosystem and help stabilise the sands and beach grasses, are removed.
"Locals have reported that the beach here used to be much wider, and the reduction in width may be due to the removal of these stabilising items.
"The vegetation also provides habitats for invertebrates, which are food for birds. This is getting rid of a little ecosystem.
"It would be better to pick up the litter by hand and leave all the natural items."
The MCS organised a "spring clean" with 35 volunteers on Saturday. They collected 62 kilogrammes of rubbish on the beach, including a hotel concession card that was 30 years old.
The number of litter items found per 100 metres was the lowest since they "adopted" the beach in 2000.
John Dods, a member of the Cramond Association and Cramond Heritage Group, said: "What happens is the tide deposits a line of seaweed along the high tide line. Within a couple of months it gets covered over with sand. This stabilises the beach, and marram grass grows over it.
"Over the years you could see it was steadily expanding by about one-and-a-half metres a year, but when you run the tractor and rake along it, it rips up the seaweed and the marram grass roots. They end up with skips full of vegetation.
"Since they started cleaning it this way eight years ago, the beach has been getting smaller by about half a metre a year."
He said he believed the beach had expanded 50 metres since 1971, but had been shrinking in recent years.
He said: "The council said it was just answering public demand. But it's a lot of rubbish.
"The beach used to be cleaned by an old guy with a barrow and shovel. He picked up unnatural rubbish and left seaweed and other plants. We'd love them to go back to doing this."
A city council spokeswoman said: "Specialist equipment which meets the standards of the Environmental Protection Act is used to clean our beaches. Seaweed is only removed intermittently when the need arises."
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www.adoptabeach.org.uk•
Marine Conservation Society website The full article contains 499 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
