TWO landslips at Stonebarrow are a reminder of just how unstable the land is on the coast between Lyme Regis and Charmouth.

The 50 metre wide slips happened almost a mile east of Charmouth, ‘without warning’, according to earth science expert Richard Edmonds.

Land at the Spittles, east of Lyme Regis, also remains unstable and dangerous following the biggest slip in the area for 26 years in May, when more than 400 metres of the coastline was blocked.

The first slide at Stonebarrow happened on Sunday, November 2. Mr Edmonds, earth science manager for the Jurassic Coast and Dorset County Council, said: “It was quite spectacular. A big pinnacle of rock pushed out across the beach and great big rocks came crashing down with explosions of dust.

“The beach has been shunted up by the clay sliding forward out of the cliff. It is not a good idea to stand that close to this kind of landslide.”

The second was on Sunday, November 16. “The rocks were tumbling quite happily down the cliff face,” said Mr Edmonds. “It is all creeping slowly but they are small events that happen all the time in the winter. It is very likely we will have more movement there this winter.”

At the Spittles, Mr Edmonds is expecting more movement, but says he has given up trying to predict landslides. He said: “The cliff on the west side of the slip, perhaps about 50 metres or so looks vulnerable to further movement but when this may happen, who knows.

“We have had very wet weather and the whole mass of the cliff has been pushed out across the beach and has pushed out quite a lot further than the first day of the big slip.

“The sea has taken away a huge volume of the base of the landslide, about 25 to 30 metres of what fell onto the beach. Now there is around a six-metre cliff which has been cut into by the sea.

“The slope itself contains mudflows and landslides - don't be tempted to venture up onto it. As always, the safety message is to stay away from the cliff and beware of rocks tumbling down. Stay on the beach.”

Graham Turner, Lyme Regis Coastguard station manager, said the area is under their ‘constant watch’. He said: “It is going to be ongoing for many moons. It was reasonably stable at the end of the season but with the bad weather it is starting to get a bit more unstable again.”

Church Beach has been left littered with broken glass and metal, which has fallen down from the municipal rubbish tip behind.

Around 40 years of rubbish is continuing to spill out, including water tanks, immersion heaters and bits of cars.

“The worst of the metal from the tip has been removed by the district council but there is still a lot there and it will continue to come out as the sea washes away the slip,” said Mr Edmonds.

Mr Turner said coastguards cannot restrict people from walking along the beach. “We can only advise them to be careful because there is still a lot of glass and rusty items,” he said.

The beach remains accessible but is very muddy and strewn with boulders, making it a difficult walk.

Mr Edmonds said: “Tides cut off the beach shortly after low water and also the shore between the landslide and Lyme. Be prepared to get away quickly when the tide comes in.”

Fossil hunters continue to scour the area but Mr Edmonds said the slip missed the best layers by just a few metres. “There are fossils but the majority are not particularly well preserved,” he said.

** Church Beach has failed to meet water quality standards.

The beach met the basic level but was one of 11 beaches in the Wessex area to fail the ‘guideline standard’, which is 20 times more stringent than the basic test and set by the European Commission.

The Environment Agency said this is a result of one of the wettest summers on record.

Regional director Richard Cresswell said: “There is a direct link between rainfall and bathing water quality. We saw an extraordinary amount of rainfall during the summer and this caused an increase in the amount of pollution in some of the region’s bathing waters because of diffuse run-off, both from farmland and towns.”