Funding has been set aside for lifeguards to be stationed at Camber Sands following the deaths of seven people on the beach over the summer.

Rother District Council's cabinet this week agreed £51,000 should be spent on lifeguards after the proposal was included in the council’s draft revenue budget for 2017/18.

A safety review was launched after the deaths of the seven men from London in the water in two separate incidents in July and August.

The cash for a lifeguard service is still due to be approved by Rother council's scrutiny committee and would then need to be included in the authority's full budget proposals next year.

It has also been revealed that three years ago, the RNLI first recommended the council should consider “a seasonal lifeguard service” following a risk assessment review in 2013 and a “lifeguard service level assessment”.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act show a headline cost was presented back in 2013 but was never followed up by the council.

The tragedies this year followed the deaths of two women in 2013 and 2014. There were no deaths on the beach in 2015.

A statement issued by RDC after the second tragic incident in August – in which five friends from south east London died – said the “need for lifeguards to be deployed at the beach” had not been identified.

The council came under pressure from residents to employ lifeguards on the stretch of beach after the deaths this year.

A petition has been signed by more than 8,000 people demanding a lifeguard service. It was launched after 19-year-old Brazilian man Gustavo Silva Da Cruz died on July 24 after getting into difficulty.

Mohit Dupar, 36, died four days later at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.

An inquest heard he was trying to rescue Mr Silva Da Cruz when he got into trouble.

His teenage son Ankush was also swept under the water during that same incident and spent weeks in hospital in a coma and woke to be told his father had died, the inquest into his father’s death in Hastings was told.

The second tragic incident in the summer involved five Sri Lankan friends, all from south east London, who were visiting the beach for the day exactly a month after Mr Silva Da Cruz died.

Nitharsan Ravi, Kenugen and Kobikanthan Saththiyanathan, Gurushanth Srithavarajah and Inthushan Sriskantharasa were pulled from the water after driving down for a day on the beach and playing volleyball on August 24.

Council correspondence released after a freedom of information request shows the council focused on providing safety for land-based incidents, which made up 95% of all incidents on the beach.

The remaining 5% of water-based incidents were mainly inflatable or off-shore wind incidents which “improved signage, better communication with the lifeboats and coastguard and personal approaches by beach patrols” had been “valuable in preventing serious incidents”.

Documents published under the FOI Act have names of officers and council staff redacted.

But one email thread suggested the 5% of water incidents and the vast majority of shore-based incidents to which patrols reacted, meant the safety assessment should be “viewed accordingly, although in no way dismissing the serious implications water incidents can have”.

East Sussex Coroner Alan Craze, who is leading the inquests into the deaths, said at a pre-inquest review in November that a full investigation about what happened is “owed to the community”.

Mr Craze said: “Safety is, because of these tragic deaths, extremely important and I think I owe it to the community as a whole to investigate as far as I can conceivably do and as my powers allow me.”