On the morning of 9th November at 7.33 am there was a large rockfall at West Bay, captured by the Environment Agency camera and shown on the Bournemouth News site. At the time there were swimmers on the beach who witnessed the fall and could confirm they had not seen anyone walking along that stretch.
Sam Scriven, Heritage and Conservation Manager for the Jurassic Coast Trust explains “It was probably caused by the usual combination of circumstances. We have had some storms roll through already this year and last week we had the first hard frost along with fantastic sunny weather. This is probably the follow-up to that because of the way the frost acts on the water and the ground to chill things. The rocks expanding and contracting, the storms and the changing circumstances of the weather: all those factors together trigger a rockfall.”
As ever, we advise people to keep away from the cliffs both on the beach and at the top.
