Woke Coast Guard tries to ban pit digging! Families at popular Cornwall beach ordered to stop the great British summer tradition after an 8m trench had to be filled by an excavator

• Locals near Padstow in Cornwall told HM Coastguard to ‘catch’ the move

HM Coastguard has been criticized for trying to ban families from digging holes on a popular Cornish beach.

Locals living near posh Padstow in Cornwall told crews to “get a grip” after complaining about a ghost digger on Facebook.

HM Coastguard Padstow said the crater, carved into Tregirls beach, was dangerous as it could collapse for beachgoers.

Coastguard crews – who often work with the wake-obsessed RNLI – called in a local farmer to fill the crater with a digger.

But the move has been criticized as a health and safety concern with some residents telling the Coast Guard to leave the beaches alone.

One fumed to MailOnline: ‘You’d think these people have never been to the beach before then they’re going to ban buckets and spades. We all have to get going.

Click here to resize this module

The man added: “Did someone dig a hole on a quiet beach? So what? I can’t believe the emergency services would care, let alone fill it in and tell people.

The ghost digger cut the 8-metre-deep, 9-metre-wide hole by hand – moving around nine tonnes of sand in the process last weekend.

The coastguard called in TV farmer Charlie Watson Smyth, who owns Padstow Farm and lives locally, to fill the hole using a telescopic handler.

Watson Smyth told MailOnline: ‘It’s quite bizarre, people are always digging holes in the sand, but I’ve never seen anything on this scale.

“It was perfectly round and looked like it had been dug out by something mechanical, they made it look like it had been drilled, but it wasn’t.

“If you think about the effort involved, you have to ask why? And nobody seems to know anything about it.

“Usually things come out and someone knows, but not this time, it’s a mystery.”

But while some locals thought the coast guard was overreacting, others were unimpressed.

Giorgia Guy, 56, from Wadebridge, Cornwall, said: “Someone must have spent hours digging her up and then to get up and go home and leave him is so selfish and reckless.

“People have died from falling into pits dug on the beach, or if it crashed into someone, whoever was responsible would have that on their conscience for the rest of their lives.”

In July 2021, an 18-year-old boy had to be dug out of the sand on Fistral Beach, Newquay, by emergency services after a hole he had dug collapsed on top of him.

And in 2005, three-year-old Abbie Livingstone-Nurse died when she jumped into a 5ft deep sand hole dug by her half-brother at Towans Beach, Hayle.

A spokesman for HM Coastguard Padstow said: “We are aware of the large hole that has been dug on Tregirls beach and the danger this poses to the general public. I arranged for a local farmer to fill it using a telehandler.

“This pit is about 9 feet wide and 8 feet deep and was dug by hand. The potential for something like this to cause injury to the unwary or crash into children exploring it should not be underestimated. Sand hole collapses can cause fatalities.

“Please do not dig such holes on our beaches (or any other beach) and fill in the small ones your children dig before you leave.

“The fact that a telehandler is required to fill this one speaks volumes for the danger it poses.”