Villagers in Torcross, Slapton and nearby Street are up in arms because their A379 coast road is threatened by the desires and actions of English Nature.

The road is a life-line for the villagers, not only linking the villages, but providing their only direct route to Dartmouth. Traders say without the road business will fall to unprofitable levels and they will have to close, leaving hundreds of families without shops and eating places.

The council rebuilt the road after it was damaged during ferocious storms in January 2001. It was a first taste for modern-day villagers to understand what life without the road might mean, although it was only a taste – the road was kept open by a system of one-way working.

Special permission had to be granted to rebuild the road as the site was a National Nature Reserve. Now English Nature has ordered the removal of thousands of tons of boulders from the shingle beach, which were put there to protect the new coast road from erosion.

The last time the villagers had such a disruption was in the Second World War when the US Army used the Slapton area as a base during preparations and training for the Normandy landings. That time villagers were evacuated.

In 1944 hundreds of American servicemen were killed near Slapton when German E-boats surprised them (and themselves) during an exercise rehearsing for the D-Day landings. The US government erected a monument to the servicemen including an actual tank rescued from the sea and after the road was rebuilt, the council used the opportunity to improve facilities for visitors at the monument and the Nature Reserve.

The problem lies in the sensitive lake behind the coast road. Slapton Ley National Nature Reserve - just inland from the beach which carries the A379 road- is the largest natural freshwater lake in South West England, while the shingle bar is a nationally important example of a bay bar.

The reserve is the only place in Britain for the vascular plant strapwort, and boasts the largest English population of Cetti's warbler.

There are 2,000 species of fungi here, 29 of which have been described as new to science.

English Nature says the boulders that were placed to protect the road are doing more damage than protection. By forcing water around the backs and sides of the rocks they are making erosion worse, they say.

And here lies the nub of the problem – should the road be damaged again then it is highly unlikely that permission would be granted for any further renewal. Part of the road was moved inland by 25 metres during the recent rebuilding so ensuring that it was in an erosion-free place.

Now a partnership and control group set up to study the problem is suggesting that a sea wall could be built, or a new road behind the lake. Neither is likely to be undertaken because of the cost or the potential damage to the sensitive area. The only other solution it’s to let nature take its course – but without permission to rebuild the road again.

In the longer term, English Nature's conservation officer, Dr Simon Dunsford, said that further loss of coastline is bound to happen: "It's inevitable that the shingle bar is under threat," he said.

Nobody seems to be asking what may happen to the Nature Reserve should the shingle bar be breached. It could be that the road is the only thing protecting Slapton Ley in the longer term. In addition to the lives of the villagers of course, who feel left out of all the decision making. “English Nature protects animals and their habitat,” said one Torcross villager on local television this week, “Mammals are animals. I’m a mammal, this is my habitat and should be protected too.”