Michael Stevens, of Lower Contour Road, Kingswear, writes:

I am flattered that in Janice Henshall's letter last week I am named no less that six times.

However, your readers must be getting tired of the constant spat between the two sides of the dispute about public rights to Lighthouse beach.

Ms Henshall is wrong in her reading of the Newhaven ruling. paragraph 52 of it states: 'The fact that lawful sports and pastimes cannot be engaged in over the whole of the registered land all the time, is not a reason for refusing to register all the land over which at times of the day, depending on the state of the tide, the public can and do engage as of right in lawful sports and pastimes.'

Also her statement that only 42 per cent of the beach was ever covered by the tide is the wrong way round.

What the High Court ruling actually states, paragraph 61, is 'on average, the land is completely covered by water for 42 per cent of the time'. This is much more than she, mistakenly, even claims for Lighthouse beach.

The county council has already accepted the application to register Lighthouse beach as valid and meeting the requirements of the legislation. The points being made by Ms Henshall were contained in David Southwick's objections which were answered at the time.

The county council was obviously satisfied that these objections were not significant as it proceeded to appoint the Planning Inspectorate as an independent body to hold a public inquiry.

Mr Southwick is a wealthy man. Why then is Ms Henshall, and Mr Southwick in his earlier letter, trying to deter people from contributing to our fund to enable the public to be represented, as he no doubt will be, at the inquiry. What are they afraid of? Are they so sure that we are going to win that their only option to try to deny us full legal representation?

Our appeal for financial help has been running for about four weeks and is going well but but we still have a way to go to pay for a barrister. We ask for the public's continued support as we believe that we have a good chance of success as long as we have the right level of legal representation to argue any technical or legal issues involved.

Generations before us, from both sides of the river, have used Lighthouse beach and we are trying to ensure that generations to follow us will be able to do so too.

Anyone who wishes for further information is free to contact me at michael_stevens @email.com.