NOW you see it - now you don’t… when the weekend’s stormy weather dumped about 800 tons of sand in foot-high drifts along Minehead Esplanade’s walkways and pavements, residents and visitors were reconciled to suspending their seaside walks.

But they reckoned without the determination of Somerset Council’s grounds maintenance teams who took up the challenge and with machinery and shovels, made a clean sweep of The Esplanade in a matter of hours.

In the past, volunteers with buckets and spades have done their best to clean up after winter sandstorms.

A team of 70, headed by members of West Somerset Council, once shifted more than 100 tons in a weekend after complaints about the state of the seafront.

Some residents claimed the problem of sand blowing in the wind had become worse since a multi-million project to replace the sea wall and parts of the beach was completed in 2001.