MEMBERS of a parish council fear they could lose valuable influence over cockling problems if the district council opts to give up its lease of a stretch of foreshore, reports Michaela Robinson-Tate.

South Lakeland District Council wants to ditch the lease after it was forced to spend £26,000 dealing with cockling problems.

However, members of Aldingham Parish Council fear if SLDC ceases to lease the foreshore between Conishead and Roosebeck, they will have no local liaison point over cockling.

Next Wednesday's SLDC cabinet meeting is being recommended not to renew the lease from the Crown Estate when it expires next April.

SLDC assistant director of environmental health Chris Fidler said that the lease dated back many years, and no one was sure why it had been taken on.

Normally, the council would spend around £750 a year on rent and litter picking. However, costs escalated because of problems with cocklers.

The council spent money cleaning up the land, putting in bollards to prevent vehicles going on to the foreshore, and removing abandoned vehicles. However, although SLDC had a duty, under the lease, to prohibit vehicles, it did not have statutory powers to do so.

Mr Fidler said it was difficult to see what benefit the council was getting from the lease: "Were we to renew the lease, then potentially the costs would continue to fall to SLDC to make good. What does the council benefit by retaining the lease? All it gets is a number of liabilities as far as we can see open-ended liabilities potentially and that just doesn't make sense."

The cockling beds at Aldingham and Newbiggin are currently shut, but could be re-opened in the future. The foreshore is still being used to access other areas.

SLDC councillor for Low Furness and Swarthmoor Sonjie Marshall said the council hoped, by giving up the lease, to involve the Crown Estate more in the cockling problems.

However, the chairman of Aldingham Parish Council, Vicky Brereton, said that after lengthy discussions, members had decided that even if SLDC gave up the lease, it would still incur cleaning and other costs because rubbish was not restricted to the foreshore.

They also believed that correspondence between SLDC and the Crown Estate had been slow. The parish council decided it would be better to deal with SLDC over cockling problems than with a much more remote body. "If South Lakeland do drop out now, it's a cop out. We felt we were being left in the lurch as local residents."

Crown Estate spokesman Giles French said he could not be definite until after SLDC had reached a decision, but normally, another body would be sought to take on the lease.