Hangtime Kitesports teamed up with Eddie Sloane and Trax Group in 2008 to try and reach a resolution to bring wind powered wheel sports back to St. Anne's Beach.  As part of this campaign we wrote an initial proposal to Fylde Borough Council which outlined how a Safety Management System could provide a "reasonable & practicable" (as per HSE legislation) beach management structure to St. Anne's Beach critcally the scheme should not cost the council and should be sustainable for the future.

The proposal was following on the heels of 2 previous systems that had been rejected by Fylde Borough Council as they did not (in the opinion of the council and their advisors) mitigate the risks to the public enough.

The first of these schemes was an entirely voluntary based scheme which included "no wheel" areas of the beach at important access points for the public.  It included the use of a voluntary code of practice and did not include sand yacht's.  This was rejected by the council in winter '06

The second scheme was a little more "managed" and included the above measures as well as a licencsing scheme (similar to that in place at other beaches around the U.K.).  This again was rejected as it was deemed impossible to control & administrate the licence scheme and would have meant investment by the council (at this time Trax group were not involved in the proposal and i certainly did not have the cash to operate such a scheme!) This was rejected in 2007.

2008 saw the teaming up of Hangtime Kitesports and Trax group.  Eddie Sloane had become a fan of kitesports, first on land and then on the water during 2007 & 2008 and was keen to try and increase access for the sport.  Like myself Eddie had previous experience of sports being restricted in their access to the open environment.  Eddie could also see the potential of the St. Anne's venue for the sport & education.

Eddie's first love is and was motorcylce racing, in particular sand racing in which he has competed his entire adult life.  This previous experience has proved essential in the development of the Safety Management System now with the council as Eddie's experience of motor cross events, race organisation and marshalling has been adopted into the S.M.S. for events.

After sending the S.M.S. to Fylde Council (who then sent it to Aitkins their technical advisors) who then sent it back to us with a stack of questions Eddie Sloane asked Michael Foote (Trax Group HSE Technical advisro) to formulate a response.  Michael did a fantastic job of answering all of Aitkins questions in conjunction with myself and Aitkins said that providing all elements of the S.M.S. could be put in place "there is no Health and Safety reason for not allowing the sport back to St. Anne's beach.

This process has cost money, time and effort and as a result it opened the door to our proposal becoming a reality!

I will try to post a downloadable overview of the S.M.S. here over the next few days (as soon as i work out how to make it work!)