§ MR. SUMMERBELL (Sunderland)To ask the hon. Member for the Hallam Division of Sheffield, as representing the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, whether he is aware that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have for some time past granted a licence for the removal of sand and shingle from the Fulwell foreshore, near Sunderland, and that, although the Commissioners have been appealed to by the Corporation of Sunderland and the South Shields Rural Council to determine such licence, on the ground of the damage to adjoining lands and public property by the incursions of the sea consequent upon such removal, the Commissioners have decided to continue to permit such removal, although the corporations in the immediate locality have discontinued it; and whether the Commissioners will reconsider their decision.
(Answered by Mr. Stuart Wortley.) Before the representations from the Corporation of Sunderland and the Rural District Council of South Shields were received by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners negotiations had been in progress with the Sunderland Rural District Council, the local authority within whose area the foreshore to which the Question refers is situate, and an agreement had practically been arrived at for a letting of the foreshore by the Commissioners to that district council. In pursuance of that agreement the requisite notice has already been given to revoke the licence under which sand and shingle have been removed from the foreshore during the last year.