Published: Wednesday, 15th March 2023
A joint project between the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, the RNLI and the le Strange Estate will help to improve beach safety at Old Hunstanton beach.
New signage will help people to make informed and safe choices about their visit to the beach by providing updateable information about tide times and hazards. It will be installed by Easter.
Cllr Stuart Dark MBE, council leader, said:
“We know that our local lifeboat crew do wonderful work so, when they approached us saying that they were having more emergency callouts in Old Hunstanton due to holidaymakers not knowing the tide times and the dangers of being cut off from shore, we wanted to help them all we could.
“It became clear that a simple and straightforward solution to increase public safety and decrease demand on the crew was available by putting in clear signage and it was absolutely right that we, as a council, found the money to make this happen promptly.”
Charles le Strange Meakin, of the le Strange Estate and president of Hunstanton RNLI, said:
“I’m very grateful to the borough council for their help in improving public safety information here at Old Hunstanton. It’s a great contribution to keep beach users safe.”
Rigil Kent, Lifeboat Operations Manager, Hunstanton RNLI, said:
“The installation of the safety sign has been a great collaboration between the Borough Council of King's Lynn & West Norfolk, The Le Strange Estate and the RNLI. To see it coming to fruition makes us all very proud that we are able to display safety messaging in such a pragmatic way. Hunstanton Lifeboat Station has always displayed tide times on the station notice boards but these were not easy for everybody to read. The new sign displays the tide time electronically, features a scrolling screen which can be used for additional safety messaging, and includes printed beach safety messaging. We would like to thank the borough council and Le Strange Estate for working with us and for helping us to make our beaches safer.”
Beach safety signs are already in place in a number of council-owned locations, where they help residents and holidaymakers to make safe decisions about their bathing by providing a range of information.
This joint project, between the borough council, RNLI and the Le Strange Estate, will extend the network of signs to include Old Hunstanton. This will see an additional sign being installed in Old Hunstanton on land owned by the Le Strange estate, which will show the main hazards for this stretch of the coastline, emergency information and a beach map. It will also feature an updateable digital display panel that features tide times and other safety information. It will be located near the RNLI station at the main access point for Old Hunstanton beach.