Ladram Bay beach: Popular beach in Devon closed on Bank Holiday weekend after 'significant' cliff fall saw rocks smash onto boats below

A popular UK beach has been shut down this weekend after large amounts of rocks cut away from the cliff and smashed into boats and paddle boards lined up below. The incident occurred on Ladram Bay beach, near Sidmouth, in Devon, in the early hours of this morning (Monday 6 May) at around 7am.

Thankfully, no one was hurt when the cliff fall happened. Barriers have been put up along all access roads to the beach to stop anyone from going on it. 

A spokesperson from Ladram Bay Holiday Park said the beach would remain closed to its guests and members of the public until the safety of the iconic cliffs and Jurassic coastline had been assessed. The holiday park posted a warning message to its customers on social media which read: “Beach closure notice. As you may be aware for several months we have been monitoring the cliff. Early this morning we sadly experienced a significant cliff fall where thankfully no-one was hurt.”

Exmouth RNLI Lifeboat station said it had been made aware of the cliff fall but had not been called out to any incident on the beach. A spokesperson said: "A customer came into our shop this morning and told us about it. They saw it happen at around 7am this morning which was fortunate as there was no-one about on the beach. Some of the rocks fells on top of boats below the cliff and this customer said he was lucky not to have parked theirs just there. It was lucky no-one was underneath it when it came down."

The Jurassic coast in East Devon is notorious for cliff falls. In March a large cliff fall took place in Sidmouth with eyewitnesses describing rocks the size of cars coming down onto the beach below.