Call out for volunteers to tackle weedy eyesores around Thurso’s beachfront
A former Thurso community councillor has started a Facebook page with the intention of cleaning up weedy eyesores around Thurso beach and esplanade.
Corinne Nicklin had been a member of Thurso Community Council until it went into abeyance earlier this year after internal disputes led to mass resignations.
This week, Mrs Nicklin set up Thurso Beach Action Group to address the issues of weeds and grass that are damaging the infrastructure of the scenic route and are a visual blight for locals and visitors.
“I had been constantly phoning up and saying to Highland Council that they need to do something about the steps and the handrail leading down to the beach as it’s dangerous,” she said.
“They cleared two steps, and that’s all they did. The area around the beach badly needs to be weeded and is unkempt, and looks sorry. We want people to come together and get it all sorted out.”
Mrs Nicklin says that if residents just spent a few hours a month they could help tidy up the eyesore area that stretches along the esplanade above Thurso beach and out along to Victoria Walk. She says she admires the work done by Wick Paths Group, which strimmed and weeded areas of the town ahead of the County Show and upcoming Gala Week.
In one of her first posts on the new group, she shared multiple images of the weedy problem and wrote: “This is what our cruise passengers and other tourists have to negotiate.”
Mrs Nicklin feels it creates a very poor image of Thurso for the tourists walking along Victoria Walk from Scrabster and along the esplanade.
“They walk along the derelict steps and onto a weed-strewn beach. That’s their first impression of Thurso.”
She highlighted a morass of weeds around a boarded-up building known locally as the Old Man’s Rest; huge weeds poking out of a myriad of cracks on steps leading to the beach that are “destroying the infrastructure”; decayed and rotten benches; and broken posts at the base of handrails along the beachfront that pose a potential danger to the public, especially the elderly and disabled.
“Some people say it’s just nature, but it’s actually destroying our infrastructure, and if we don’t address the problem now, we won’t have any steps or access at all.”
She said that throughout Thurso, the problem of weeds is getting out of hand and believes that, over the years, the roots will gradually expand cracks and undermine pavements and steps.
“If you pull out some of these weeds, then you’ll pull out some of the cement with it, and the problem just gets worse. We need some kind of weedkiller as well.”
Mrs Nicklin said she feels very passionate about the matter and hates to see everything going to “rack and ruin”.
“If people just invested a few hours a month to come together and help, then it’s boundless what we can do.”
Anyone who can help with the Thurso weed-busting initiative should join the Facebook group Thurso Beach Action Group at: www.facebook.com/groups/1445370710227522
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