Asbestos mystery leaves beloved beach closed

Mount Batten Beach offers a magnificent view across Plymouth Sound.

Looking out across the water, beachgoers can watch cormorants diving for fish, yachts criss-crossing the water and the sun setting over the Cornish coast beyond.

But beneath the beach sand there is a problem that refuses to disappear.

For more than six years, asbestos has been washing up with the tide, turning one of Plymouth's handful of swimming spots into the centre of a growing environmental mystery.