Following reports of people climbing at several key locations along the Jurassic Coast, Swanage Coastguard says it is disappointing that people are failing to follow government instructions to stay at home.
This weekend, landowners including Dorset Council and the National Trust have closed all the beach car parks in an effort to discourage people from taking part in outdoor pursuits along the coastline.
Swanage Coastguard said:
“Dorset Police has been advised and are investigating. The instruction is for walking, running and essential exercise from your own home, which is not the same as climbing or going out on the water in kayaks.
“Sadly if anything goes wrong, those individuals are putting the emergency services under unnecessary pressure and at great risk. Please stop.”
Climbing and hill walking on hold
The British Mountaineers Council (BMC) and mountain rescue teams have advised all climbers, hill walkers and mountaineers to stay in their home area and put all climbing and hill walking on hold.
BMC’s chief executive officer, Dave Turnbull said:
“We never thought we’d be asking the outdoor community not to go climbing or hill walking, but that’s our current advice. It’s time to put it on hold.”
BMC access officer and member of Llanberis Mountain Rescue, Elfyn Jones explained why it’s time to put climbing and hill walking on hold.
Elfyn Jones said:
“There’s been a lot of talk about justifying why we can still climb or hill-walk safely within our capabilities and that, somehow, we can do this without affecting anyone else or impacting spread of the virus. The simple fact is – we can’t. Please stop.”
“Stay in your home area. We all owe it to everyone else to do everything we can to help stop or at least delay the spread of this disaster. Please put climbing, mountaineering and hill walking on hold until it’s safe to do so.”
