Tynemouth beachgoers horrified by nail and battery dump

Volunteers spent hours picking nails and shards of metal off King Edward's Bay beach

Beachgoers were horrified to discover thousands of nails, batteries and shards of metals strewn across a popular shoreline.

Early morning swimmers found the items dumped at King Edward's Bay in Tynemouth on Sunday morning.

Mallory Smith from the Totally Tynemouth group said the objects would be "very nasty" to stand on and volunteers spent hours picking them up.

Northumbria Police and North Tyneside Council are investigating.

Ms Smith said the small objects were found all across the beach and warned that while "the bulk" had been retrieved, more could remain on or just below the surface.

The beach at King Edward's Bay is popular with swimmers, walkers and visitors

She said swimmers were used to clearing debris from the beach first thing in the morning, such as broken bottles and litter dropped the night before, but this was something else.

"We understand how the usual rubbish gets here by people dropping it but this one we really don't get," she said. "It's horrifying and frustrating and we are all just livid and in shock and disbelief.

"We all feel it has been done deliberately, maybe because someone thought it would be funny, but we don't understand it all.

"It's just frightening and would be very nasty if someone, especially children, were to step on them in bare feet."

Metal discs and batteries were also found strewn across the beach

Ms Smith said she did not believe they would have been washed up by the sea as many of the nails looked practically new and they were distributed all over the beach.

A Northumbria Police spokeswoman said it was making inquiries after the debris was reported at about 08:15 on Sunday.

She said the matter had been referred to the council for clearing.

Sam Dand, North Tyneside Council's director of environment, said it would be increasing patrols in the area.

"Like our residents, we are shocked and appalled by this incident.," she said.

"We would like to thank those who spent time cleaning up the beach on Sunday morning.

"We clean the beaches every day throughout the summer months, and we also have specialist equipment to rake and sieve the sand to remove smaller pieces of debris."