Naturists Brave the Elements to Stake Their Claim to Beach

GALE force winds yesterday didn’t deter naturists who were determined to fight a ban on baring all at a Yorkshire beach.

East Riding Council has outraged those who regard the human body as a thing of beauty by putting up notices on Fraisthorpe Beach, near Bridlington, warning nude sun bathers that they face prosecution.

Yesterday members of Fraisthorpe United Naturists (FUN) – including teachers, a university lecturer, farmer and solicitor – staged a lie down protest on the sands.

They claim the signs were a gimmick by local Tories to drum up publicity before the local elections and are a slur on a movement which has been coming to Fraisthorpe since before the Second World War.

At its peak in the 1960s – before the advent of the package holiday – the beach was said to have attracted some 500 naturists.

Yesterday, there were only 10 which FUN leaders said underlined the apprehension produced by the signs as well as the threat of being spied on by perverts.

John Wymark-Hoar, a York- based drug addition counsellor and a regional leader of British Naturism, said: “This is the only naturist beach in Yorkshire and we are going to defend it forever.”

But Angela Norrie, of West Ayton, near Scarborough, said: “I think what is going on here is wrong. It is not the naturists that come here that the cause the problems but those who come here for different reasons.”

Group spokesman Max Pratt, 34, of Dore, Sheffield, said: “We are being persecuted as a minority in a way they would not dare treat an ethnic or religious group.”

But some residents claimed the naturists were part of an ongoing problem of anti-social behaviour on the beach, which also included people seeking casual sexual encounters.

One said: “People who think the naturists are being persecuted should ask why the council closed down the naturist section of the beach in the first place – because it is impossible to police and because of everything else going on down there.”

An East Riding Council spokesman said: “There is no designated naturist beach within the East Riding. If any organisation wishes to have an event on council land they need to obtain a licence to do so.”

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