Grassed up
We all know about the East Coast. I think everyone must have seen that bit of film where Richard Whiteley is talking in the foreground about coastal erosion and the hotel behind him suddenly crashes into the sea.

On the West Coast there's a slightly different problem. Here's a photograph of Grange-over-Sands - not a very good one, I admit, because I took it from a speeding train. Grange is a genteel Victorian resort peopled by delightful men and women all aged about a hundred and ten - they retire there and then live for ever because the climate is warm and the air is fresh and the scenery is beautiful.

Grange-over-Sands, though? No, not any more, it's Grange-over-Grass. The promenade, which used to be next to the sands, now looks over Spartina grass stretching out for miles. Until 1990 they used to spray it with a herbicide, which then became unavailable - and they didn't know what the spraying did to the environment anyway.

So, should we be trying to get rid of it before it clogs up the whole of Morecambe Bay? In some places there are sheep grazing where the beach used to be. Or should we just accept it as a natural process?

I took the second photograph at Bardsea, some miles along the coast from Grange. Beware of the Grass.