Big Bangs Blast Beach!

During the last week of November, 2012 residents of Holme-next-the-Sea were hearing occasional loud explosions coming from the general area of the beach. Some villagers reported their windows rattled and others rushed to check that their central heating boilers were still functioning normally!

During the last world war, and in the decade that followed, there were army firing ranges located in the area. To make the practice more realistic, tracks were built to allow mobile targets to traverse to and fro so that the gunners would be more realistically challenged. Not all of the ordnance fell where it was supposed to and a number of rounds, of various sizes, found their way on to the local beaches.

Every year one of the forces' bomb disposal teams send in detection experts to search for buried metal objects on the beach. Any locations are marked with a flag and shortly afterwards a bomb disposal team arrives to dig up the discovered metal to check if it is ordnance. If anything potentially dangerous is discovered it is demolished with a controlled explosion.

This year a team from Royal Navy Diving Unit 2 visited Holme-next-the-Sea to look after the demolition jobs. A big thank you to all those who are helping to clear our beaches of these unexploded shells.