THE members of Bude-Stratton Town Council and Bude Climate Partnership have issued statements to “correct misconceptions” arising from the council’s extraordinary meeting about the impact of sea level rise on Summerleaze beach, held in front of a packed house at the Parkhouse Centre on April 18.

At the meeting, reported in last week’s Post, projects managed by Cornwall Council and the Environment Agency were combined with the recommendations of the Bude Area Community Jury on Climate Change.

The conflation of the jury’s recommendations with the ‘Dune Management Plan’ and the ‘Making Space for Sand’ project led to the false impression the jury had recommended that beach dunes should rollback over Summerleaze car park to protect Bude from sea level rise.

“Unfortunately, this false impression led the mayor to question whether the jury had considered any alternative options to their recommendation – a recommendation that didn’t exist,” said Rob Uhlig, Bude Climate Partnership’s programme director. “The jury tried to make the distinction clear. Although the mayor was told the jury hadn’t considered any Summerleaze car park options at all, this crucial information was not heard in the heat of the meeting. It also wasn’t helped by erroneous speculation on Facebook before the meeting.”

In its statement, the town council said: “Bude-Stratton Town Council as lead partner of Bude Climate Partnership, supports a correction over the clarity of projects being undertaken in the town.

“Making Space for Sand Project is funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, managed by the Environment Agency. The project is being principally delivered by Cornwall Council and did not form part of the Bude Climate Partnership Jury’s recommendations that were presented to the Town Council last week.”

The management of Summerleaze dunes is determined by Cornwall Council’s 2016 Dune Management Plan. Cornwall Council’s Making Space for Sand project is gathering data and investigating how the plan could be implemented to protect Cornwall’s coastline against climate change.

Rob added: “It took the jury five days of facilitated deliberations, listening to 21 commentators, some of them world experts, to produce their 11 principles and 29 recommendations. It’s understandable that crucial technical and policy details can easily get misunderstood in the heat of a meeting, which is why the community needs to base any decisions on informed facts.”