Players at England's oldest golf course told to let it crumble into the sea

England's oldest golf course is slipping into the Bristol channel, and players and locals have been ordered to allow it to happen and stop shoring up its sea defences by hand.

As coastal erosion accelerates, the seventh and eighth holes at the 144-year-old Royal North Devon Golf Club near Westward Ho! could disappear as early as next year, according to senior club members.

But there is frustration that Natural England, a government agency, has ordered the club to stop "potwalloping", the practice of holding back coastal erosion by rounding up local people twice a year to replace by hand the stones which have been washed away.

The agency said the coast must be allowed to erode in a "managed realignment" because continued human intervention will alter the way the sea naturally interacts with the sand dunes in an area of special scientific interest.

There are also concerns that diverting the tidal flow could expose an old landfill site further along the coast, which is thought to contain tonnes of asbestos.

Until this year, the banks of the windswept links were disappearing at a rate of about a metre a year, with the pebble ridge which defends the course retreating 50 metres between 1947 and 2000. Fierce storms earlier this year tore a 27-metre chunk off the exposed tip of the course and the unstable land has since continued to crumble, leaving the eighth hole 18 metres from the edge.

"If something isn't done to stop it, we will lose a significant portion of the course in the next 12 months," said David Lloyd, a senior club member.

"I don't think the authorities understand fully the impact that would have on the lives of the local people and the effect it would have on the economy of the area."

Andrew Eastman, a member of Torridge district council, said: "We just need to scoop the pebbles back up and place them where they came from.

"It isn't difficult, or costly, we could do it and fund it ourselves but have been ordered not to. It will be a disgraceful shame if the golf course disintegrates in front of us when we have it in our power to protect it."

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