Whilst I don't disagree with your sentiments what we really want are all beaches to be clothes optional. Official beaches seem to be corals for those strange nudies.

However at present the pigs are flying over and at the moment more official beaches are certainly desirable.

Davie  8)

I would like to see it how the French do it down near the west coast, the beaches are all classed as C/O beaches and then the town beaches are designated textile and have signs to say so, these are patrolled and shows on the sign what is allowed or not allowed as far as topless etc, this is very good so that families can get to them. Then walkers with dogs or not on a beach would know where they stand when seeing naturists.

People on here (some anyway I think) will say that I am not a complaining sort, but really I can't help feeling a bit complainy by this post.

I am not denying for one second how nice it would be to have more designated spots generally everywhere. But everyone living around and south of the M4 corridor really needs to look at the BN map and details of all the stuff they DO have. There seems to us poor sods up here oop north, myriad and numerous tolerated beaches, clubs, saunas and swims coming out of your ears down there in comparison to us. What do I have in the whole of the East and North Riding of Yorkshire? (A very big area with the equivalent of 19th century farm tracks to get anywhere). East Yorkshire?

Hahahaahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!! Excuse me a minute, I need a hanky. God this is funny. Not. ::)

Well, the delight of being told to dress two years ago by a PCSO on Fraisthorpe.

No swims. (East Riding Council is like I.S. in this regard).

One club.

North Yorkshire?

Malton twice a month for the grand total of an hour and half each time.

Selby Leisure centre reopening soon but I am by no means holding any breaths.

Getting to very irregular Harrogate is akin to a whole day's travel which cannot be justified, and equally irregular Doncaster is not much better. Ripon is equal.

That's it. That's all I have up 'ere in hundreds of square miles.

So.......no matter how few naturist facilities people may think they have in the exotic south, it is absolute utopia compared to bloody Yorkshire.

well it seems you have some work to do up North exactly the same as they did down south, don't moan about it get together and do something about it. look at NC map and you will find all the people a re north of Derby get together and do something properly . You have the people with the skills. thats all it takes, BN will help you if you do it . Legally and correctly. Yes it takes time but keep at it you will succeed. we are all  with you.

well it seems you have some work to do up North exactly the same as they did down south, don't moan about it get together and do something about it. look at NC map and you will find all the people a re north of Derby get together and do something properly . You have the people with the skills. thats all it takes, BN will help you if you do it . Legally and correctly. Yes it takes time but keep at it you will succeed. we are all  with you.

You don't live in EY yeo.

BN was a very big help a couple of years ago. Such a big help when their representative here was hauled in for possession of....

So right now, the cause 'officially' is a dead duck, and there is a small matter of all the available leisure centres either being constructed from a heap of rubble or unsuitable for screening or not big enough or...

The fact is, there will always be many many more facilities in the south than in the north. There always was, back to the old pre-war days. Your beaches face south. You have better weather. You are 20 miles from the continent, so you have more continental attitudes. I know, I've just come back from down there. I do know it very well over 30 years of visits. It is a different planet culturally. Up here, people are fully dressed on the beach even on a hot day. We are two different countries.

I go to the Spectrum swim and yes our representative was hauled in also, but we have a committee second to none, they are brilliant, they worked there butt off legally and we now swim again, soon we hope to get the under 18s back. Work the system. use the law it is there. Go for it stand up and be counted. contact your MPs push the councils invite them to a swim or club for a day let them know we are not the weirdos they think we are.

Chuckle.

I know the East Riding Council.......

In any case, there are no swims. And YSS are behind a 6 foot fence with multiple padlocks.

well go and charm them young lady 🙂

I have a sensitive occupation and it is not the publicity I need.

Also, we did have a very good centrally located semi-regular event at York Waterworld with all the facilities that would pull over a 100 each time, but the new outsourced management as usual, decided they did not want it. It seems now, that that has been pulled down ludicrously, so a place the size and importance of York does not even have an indoor leisure venue any more.

I can go on....

Bridget actually makes a serious point, not just about them folk in Yorkshire. There are huge swathes of the country with minimal facilities. Apart from a small number of swims, clubs and Tything Barn in South Wales there's nowt in Wales.

The West Midlands is a huge conurbation, with Spectrum and the small Tess swim and Clover Spa. The nearest swim to Spectrum is Tewkesbury. If you live on the north side of Brum its a long way to go for a dip, more like 45 miles. Stoke has a swim 30 miles away and Telford is about 30 too.

The Scottish Boarders and Scotland north of the central belt is denuded (is that a pun) of facilities too.

Perhaps we all need to do our bit, as Yeoman Terry suggests

You have the people with the skills. thats all it takes, BN will help you if you do it . Legally and correctly. Yes it takes time but keep at it you will succeed. we are all  with you.

.... and Bridget, yes I do understand the difficulty some people have with jobs and the voluntary sector but just supporting the cause on here helps a little, especially if it encourages others and in particular new comers. Mind the pot holes on your farm tracks!

Davie  8)

Davie well put.

Lol, Scotland has only one landed club in the Aberdeen area, a club on an island that is a mega nightmare to get to if you don't have a car like me,2 beaches in the whole of Scotland for naturists one which is on the island of arran and the other outside inverness  ( all are very near Glasgow and easy to get too? ) NOT , and as for swims don't even go there, when I asked about getting more official places and about all of the above I was told to make a greater effort to go to these places which I found a joke, I did do something I didn't renew my bn membership and I do make a very great effort to go to a naturist venue it's called clover spa which is fantastic and worth every mile to get to it from Scotland, happy day's

P'S ,well said brigitte and very good points you make

John

I don't wish to give the impression of just rolling over and whinging about the nada facilities here. As the fact is, in the past I have written to the local press, and I wrote to a certain councillor when Fraisthorpe was once again being used as a political football. Much good it did.

Hundreds of words has been written on Fraisthorpe and I won't go there except I still use Fraisthorpe on a good day to make a point but it is not with any anticipation of a relaxed day. Other beaches are either for the bucket and spade brigade or inaccessible. We checked out Easington in Bare Beaches once, and the path was eroded completely. It happens on this coast.

We spent hundreds of pounds over a decade supporting the naturist facilities that was here. Selby was fantastic, four hours every Sunday, no club, no membership, supported regularly by 30-40+ naturists every week. Then the new management (familiar pattern) decided they didn't want or need our money, then poetically the edifice went up in smoke. When York went, Coast and Country decided they had had enough. So yes, the other venues are back to a degree, but York was the most central to all of us, with the best venue and that is no longer around.

Helmsley was nice but....three hours in an evening compared to AHG for the whole day.

It is a bit like East Coast mainline saying that they don't want to put a train on at 5.43am because there is no demand from passengers. The fact is that there may be no demand from passengers because the train doesn't run wouldn't occur to them. It wasn't the fault of the naturists up here that events intervened and policies changed to rob us of our few amenities. And there seems little prospect of getting any back.

I agree with every thing Brigitte says. I live further north than her and a couple of years ago a group tried to get a section of beach at Seaton Carew (which is next to Hartlepool as clothing optional. It is an area away from the town area of the beach but surprise, surprise the council turned down the application with hardly a second thought.

I know there is a swim at Malton but that, to me, is an hours drive there and an hours drive back. Is it worth it for a 1.1/2 hour session and another at Newcastle but I really want somewhere I can go and enjoy the sun on my back. Oh and on my front too.