well in reply to all the above comments

there are a hundred life size solid cast iron figures placed randomly all over the beach and they do create a major hazard and if you hit one fully planing or landed on one god knows the damage it would cause to the sailor or kit

they stretch from the beach access point down to the low water mark and are not visible when the tide is even at mid water

basically it would be like sailing a minefield they are not idividually marked only at the edge to create a total exclusion zone for all craft including windsurfers and there is a total ban on all watersports in this area

picture this scenario at west kirkby and i'm pretty certain it would not be liked at all

we asked at the original planning applicaion for a comprimise so 5 figures could be moved to allow sailing to continue the answer was no chance the artist has his vision and will not make any changes in fact he had numerous figures in the shipping lanes under 60ft of water he obviously did his homework

the tide here sweeps in round a deep channel effectively cutting people of from the shore we pointed this out and were told to shut up as we were "only a tiny insignificant minority who were scaremongering to get our own way "

the coastguard expressed there reservations but were persuaded to let the figures be installed on a see how it goes basis but they did say that it should never be a permanent instalation actually stated in the comments

another place ltd the trust set up to administer the statues conviently lost the letters from the coastguard and they were therefore not submitted to the original planning committee they tried this move again but got rumbled by a local councillor who asked the coastguard for copies of the letters the coastguard opinion is that they are a major hazard to shipping and beach users and are concerned by the number of times the lifeboat crew has had to navigate the statues to succesfully rescue people and is a major stroke of luck that no-one has infact died with the risks involved

and my final point is that we were promised this would be only for 16 months and then we would have our beach back so please just allow the instalation and don't _object_ at the original planning meeting
its for the good of the community

we accepted this and made no waves on the original application only to find the goal poats severly moved 18 months later

these are the facts as they happened would they have got them put on a golf course i think not and you better hope they don't get moved to wk or you'll really be up the crak with no paddle