Police take action as Ice Prince timber washes ashore

But they found that would-be amateur salvagers had moved even more quickly.

The morning's tide had distributed lengths of prepared timber along the high-tide line from the Sackville to South Cliff.

It was nothing compared with the scale of the problem dumped on Worthing's beach after the 6,395-tonne ship lost its deck cargo in heavy seas off Portland Bill in Dorset last week.

But enough had drifted as far as Bexhill to require not only an urgent clean-up operation but police enforcement.

Confronted with vans and trailers, a lone Police Community Support Officer was left to sprint up West Parade warning beach-combers that they would be breaking the law if they removed timber from the beach.

Police were also warning scavengers that the timber was allegedly "contaminated."