I am visiting Thorpe Bay Esplanade, slightly over a mile from Southend Pier. This area is a destination for traditional beach activities and water sports, kayaking, windsurfing and sailing, all away from the attractions, noise and lights of the golden mile.

Lining the beach are an eclectic mix of coloured wooden beach huts, each individually named and decorated.  The huts here stand proud of the sand, shingle and shells, on stilts, so even at high tide, they are still accessible. I look for one that was in our family and became our summer holiday destination.

The smell of salty sea air reminds of childhood times here, sunshine filled days, simple fun combing the beach, collecting shells and sea glass, whilst waiting in anticipation for the incoming tide. Sometimes a walk out on the squelchy mud in jelly shoes, to meet the incoming water, shallow and warm.

Timber groynes control the movement of beach material, but with each rising tide, the sea reaches further up the beach, many beach huts are suffering with erosion not only from the salty air, leaving layers of peeling paint, corroding and rusting bolts but the effects of the continual motion of the waves on their structures, gradually being eaten away by the relentless abrasion of the waves, many have ingenious reinforcements!  In recent storms, high winds and unheard of sea levels, several huts have been completely destroyed.

As humans continue to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we are causing a change in our in the earth temperature, ice melts, and every year, the sea rises 3.2 mm. This will have a dramatic effect on this area and possible loss of these unique structures, even housing beyond.  In years to come will there be a beach, let alone beach huts.

By Sally Chinea