Sunday, August 1, would have been the perfect day for most people enjoying the beach and cafe at Southwick but it ended in disaster for several families due to the greed of Shoreham Port Authority.

I have had a beach hut at Southwick beach for 12 years.

This year the rent has increased from £200 to £450 a year and parking charges are now imminent in Carrots Cafe car park.

That weekend was a fifth attempt to use my beach hut - up to now the car park has been so full I've had to give up and go home but as I had arranged to meet a friend I sat in the car park for half an hour for a space.

Tempers were fraught in the heat as everyone vied for spaces.

My friend and her three children, all under five years, couldn't get into the car park and because the youngsters were all distressed she decided the best course of action would be to unload the car outside the car park, drop the children and belongings at my beach hut and return to repark the car.

On her return to the car she found it had been clamped along with several others. None of the cars was obstructing the road.

When we left to go home there were a trail of clamped cars the whole length of the Basin Road South belonging to fishermen, surfers and families whose only crime was to enjoy a day at the beach.

The fine is £120. My friend had no money on her and no phone and could easily have been stranded there. If Shoreham Port Authority can only raise money in this way for the redevelopment of the harbour area then it doesn't have much imagination.

The public will soon find elsewhere to go on a weekend and before long the area will revert back to the desolate ghost town that it used to be and not the thriving bustling area that it is now.

-Karen Pearce, Hove