SUMMER bathers are being urged to stay out of the sea after hazardous metalwork was found to be lurking just beneath the surface.

Warning buoys have been placed above metal structures installed off Hordle during the Second World War – but council chiefs fear that more remains will be uncovered by wave action.

Now swimmers are being urged to keep away until the jagged anti-invasion structures – capable of causing a serious injury - have been removed.

New Forest District Council says the “difficult and costly” job of dismantling the metalwork is due to start at the end of next month but the quantity being uncovered by the sea means the job may take some time.

Coastal engineering manager Steve Cook said: “This metalwork has been surfacing on the seabed regularly due to erosion of the beach over the decades.

“As it’s below the tide line we’ll have to wait until August, when very low tides will allow us to get heavy machinery close enough to the metalwork to remove it.

“Even then we’ll only have about a two-hour window of shallow water to work in at each low tide.”

Daily Echo:

The line of metal scaffold or trellis was placed in the sea by the Wiltshire Regiment in 1940-41 designed to foil any invasion by troops and their landing craft.

A council spokesman said: “Unfortunately within two tides of being installed it had sunk into the sea bed by 16 inches.

“Work to dismantle the defences began as early as 1949, by which time they had sunk by several feet.

“Over the decades much of the structure disappeared below the sea bed, but constant coastal erosion causes new sections to reappear each year.

“For the last eight years the council has been removing them as they emerge, including removing five tonnes earlier this year.

“Following the latest discovery the council is strongly advising people against swimming anywhere in the area around or between the buoys at Hordle beach until the hazard has been removed.”

Anyone noticing any structures in the sea is asked to contact the council on 023 8028 5000 and ask for Customer Services.