Dear Councillor Duckworth,

I am writing on behalf of the Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life, a civil liberties research and campaigning organisation. We have recently published a report, “Banned from the beach: the crackdown on outdoor community sport“, which documents how councils across England and Wales are imposing licensing fees and paperwork on free and donation-based outdoor community activities. Thanet is one of the councils featured. I am writing to set out our opposition to the way the coastal licence scheme is being applied to small, free and donation-based beach classes.

We understand the wish to bring a vibrant mix of high-quality local businesses to the coast. But the scheme, and its expansion with zoned pricing for 2026, is also catching tiny wellbeing groups that make little or no money and bring real benefit to residents:

•  Angela Brier-Stephenson ran a free, donation-based sunrise yoga class at Westgate-on-Sea, about ten people, at 6am, weather permitting. She was asked for a licence of roughly £1,000 plus a £380 “estate’s fee”. She has not run the class for two summers. Her emails asking what the “estate’s fee” was for, and pointing out that the beach is tidal and therefore arguably not council land, went unanswered. The council had previously supported a paddleboard yoga session she ran, which was even featured on the council’s own website, before the licence scheme forced her to stop.

•  Vanessa Vajana coaches open-water swimming, which takes place in the sea. She faces about £1,000 plus £380 in effect simply to walk across the sand to reach the water. She has said the fees make her business unsustainable.

There is a basic question about what the council is charging for. The foreshore below the high-tide line is arguably Crown Estate land, not the council’s, and it is covered by the sea twice a day. Charging a substantial licence fee for the temporary, non-exclusive use of a tidal beach is hard to justify.

There is also a contradiction at the heart of the policy. In 2023 and 2024 Thanet helped to fund free yoga classes on the beach; in 2025 those same groups were told they would have to pay over £1,000 to use it. The council says it wants to encourage activity and local instructors on the coast, yet the licence scheme is doing the opposite.

We recognise that genuine commercial traders, such as ice cream vans and coffee stalls, occupy a pitch and can reasonably be licensed. But a handful of people doing yoga at dawn, or a coach standing in the sea, are not trading in any meaningful sense. Tiered or zoned pricing multiplies the charges without meeting the basic objection: that small, no-impact use of a public beach should not be charged at all.

We are calling for a blanket exemption for small-scale, informal activity from these licence schemes, with any qualification or insurance checks kept light-touch and one-off. We would welcome the chance to discuss the council’s coastal and events policy with you, and to explore a more liberal approach that would let these groups return to Thanet’s beaches.

Yours sincerely,

Josie Appleton