Nick Parry BBC Wales News website

All sorts of vehicles took to the sands as harvesting got underway

More than 100 four-wheel-drive vehicles and tractors drove out to the beds as the tide receded at Llansteffan.

The scenes prompted calls for new regulations from the Welsh Assembly Government to license the industry.

An assembly government spokesman said it was discussing how to manage the industry.

Police, coastguards and a lifeboat were at the beach on Thursday but the atmosphere was good humoured and trouble-free.

A bumper crop of cockles has led to the opening of beds for commercial harvesting on the Towy estuary for the first time in four years.

Cockle pickers, hoping to earn up to �500 a day, had travelled from as far as Scotland.

Terry Beard was part of a group who had travelled from Liverpool

Terry Beard from Liverpool said: "I found out about it from a mate.

"It's the first time I've been cockling picking. We will stay tonight and then go back at the end of the day tomorrow."

Rory Parsons who runs Parsons Pickles where some of the shellfish will end up estimated that around 18,000 tonnes were ready for harvesting.

But he said the beds should be licensed and access restricted to local professional gatherers.

"What you have today is a sudden influx of a massive amount of people," he said.

"From a safety point of view these beds are very dangerous as the tide runs in and out.

This is not sustainable fishing - it's chaos Bill Thomas, South Wales Sea Fisheries Committee

"It's wrong that anyone should just be able to turn up and take large quantities. It's a cash economy - these cocklers will be paid in cash and it's wide open for abuse."

Bill Thomas, a member of the South Wales Sea Fisheries Committee, said a report was put before the assembly government five years ago pressing for the beds to be licensed.

"I want to see all beds in Wales licensed," he said.

"This is not sustainable fishing - it's chaos. They will strip the beds in four to six days and we will be forced to close them again for several years."

The Welsh Assembly Government said it was discussing how to manage the industry and said it hoped to have a draft regulating order ready for consultation within a few weeks.

There were more than 100 vehicles on the sands at Llansteffan

It said it was working with police, Carmarthenshire Council and coastguards to monitor the situation.

As well as close to a dozen police vans, there were also Home Office immigration officials at the scene.

Violence erupted in the Towy Estuary in 1993 when rival cockle pickers clashed in what became know locally as the Cockle Wars but there was no repeat of those scenes on Thursday.

Holidaymaker Bill Byrne said: "I came here for a walk on Tuesday morning and I did not see one person on the beach. I've come again today and I can't believe my eyes."