Storms and shifting sands – assessing the ocean’s impact on Start Bay

Researchers from the University have conducted monthly surveys of the South Devon coastline for the past two decades.

Experts have warned that extensive storm damage caused to one of South Devon’s most iconic routes is likely to become more frequent as global sea levels rise and the impacts of extreme wave events increases. Members of the University of Plymouth’s Coastal Processes Research Group have been conducting detailed measurements and visual assessments along Start Bay for the past 20 years. Every month, scientists and students carry out beach surveys along the entire length of Slapton Sands and then pair that with details of wave strength and direction to show how sand and gravel is being transported up and down the coast. It means Start Bay is one of the best studied coastlines in the UK, with a data set of more than 200 surveys having provided a comprehensive picture of what happens when the ocean and land collide. Such detailed and complex information enables the University’s researchers to evaluate the likelihood of future coastal erosion and flooding, and how this might impact communities such as Torcross and Beesands, as well as the infrastructure that line Start Bay.

Start Bay is a closed sediment cell, meaning there’s no sand or gravel coming in from outside and no sediment is leaving the bay. It is subjected to southerly waves from the Atlantic Ocean and easterly waves from across the Channel, which means sediment is regularly pushed from Torcross to Strete, and from Strete to Torcross, respectively.

The Group’s research means they are in an unrivalled position to explain the complex science behind the physical damage caused along Start Bay in early 2026. An extreme storm shifts the equivalent of several tens of thousands of dumpy bags of gravel along the beach and the Group’s research has shown that since measurements began in 2007, more than 50,000 such bags have been removed from in front of the Torcross sea wall. It is a structure that has been upgraded several times since it was opened in 1980 to protect homes and businesses in Torcross, and the main road – the A379 – that connects it with communities further north along the bay. A major repair to the structure and a small part of the A379 was conducted in 2016 at a cost of around £3million. After three named southerly storms – Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra – hit the region within the space of three weeks in January 2026, the beach at Torcross was at its lowest level since 2007. And when it was then struck by a powerful easterly storm in early February, the impact on the beach and road was devastating.

Professor Masselink says:

“I visited Slapton Sands for the first time in 2004, and the beach was almost at the top of the sea wall. Now it is more than 5 metres lower, and the storms we’ve just experienced led to it dropping around 2m in the space of a month. Most years, changes in the wave direction will see that rebalanced, but our research is suggesting that over the past two decades at least, southerly waves have removed more gravel from the beach in front of the seawall, than the easterly waves returned.”

The situation being experienced in 2026 is not a new one – a quarter of a century ago, in 2001, a 250m section of the A379 near Strete was damaged and had to be re-aligned. During 2013/14 – when a series of storms infamously destroyed the nearby railway line at Dawlish – and 2016, both the Torcross sea wall and the road were damaged as well, requiring significant repairs. And in 2018, when the region was hit by the Beast from the East and then Storm Emma, another section of the Slapton Line got damaged.

Professor Masselink says:

“This increase in storm impacts has come at a time when sea levels are constantly rising having already gone up by around 25cm in the past 110 years. That is not something which is likely to change, and it means communities like Torcross are facing a battle on two fronts. Sea-level rise increases the impact of storms, as it enables storm waves to reach higher up the beach – and as more of the beach erodes, the waves come closer to the shore and cause more damage when they get there.”

What all that means for somewhere like Torcross, and many other coastal communities all around the country and the world, is presently open to debate. Over the centuries, critical infrastructure and houses have been built on top of the gravel barrier, well within the dynamic range of change that can be expected as a result of storms. To provide protection from coastal flooding and erosion, it has therefore been necessary to construct defences on the seafront at Torcross and along the Slapton Line, but while such structures provide protection against flooding, they also promote beach lowering in front of them.

The series of storms we had in January has once again shown those defences are extremely vulnerable – and when they fail, they take the road with them. Rebuilding the defences and road every time a storm hits is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term, particularly when you take future sea levels into account. Any decisions made are going to be difficult as there is an important human dimension, but decisions need to take the scientific evidence into account to ensure we’re not repeatedly facing this sort of situation in the years and decades to come.

Professor Gerd Masselink