What do you do when you head to Kent’s glorious coast during the summer months? Buy some fish and chips? Candy floss? Pint of beer to wash down a dish of jellied eels?

Whatever you do, the fact you’re spending in the local shops – even if just modestly – all helps the seaside town in question. After all, a busy day’s trading of low-priced goods can equate to a bounty when it comes to counting the takings when the shutters come down.

Planning to stay the night? Wonderful. You’re playing a big role in supporting the town you’re visiting.

But there is a dilemma facing many. What if the people coming down to your Margates, Folkestones, Whitstables or Broadstairs of this world bring everything with them?

There are resorts – and let’s not names here – where huge crowds come down when the weather is warm and sunny but are almost entirely self-sufficient.

They crack open their beers from home, they cook up food they’ve brought with them; they spend a penny but only in the public toilets.

They either catch public transport or coaches to their destination or simply drive and park for free in residential streets. No money goes into local coffers.

Now, let’s be absolutely clear, there is no problem in this. It’s a free world, and we’ve all done it (have you seen how much it costs to park in Whitstable these days?).

What’s more the crowds add to the buzz - the sense of this being ‘the place to be’, wherever on our coastline it might be.

Plus, no-one wants to budget hundreds of pounds to take the family for a nice day by the sea - especially not in these economically challenging times.

But it does mean that the town in question plays host for little to no reward.

And as tidy as the travelling revellers may have been (and I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt as to what normally actually happens), it’s inevitable there will be some clearing up required; at the cost of the local taxpayer.

All of which means, the host town can often actually be out of pocket when it comes to doing the sums on some of those visiting our revived resorts.

So what exactly is the answer? Well, in short, there isn’t one. You can imagine the headlines if a beach on our coastline was to start charging to access it. That’s not worth thinking about.

And you can’t really enforce a sandwich or barbecue tax on visitors, can you?

A tourist tax (an extra, small, fee added to hotel bills for each night stayed) – as Thanet District Council recently pondered – is not an option that would really work, either. If for no other reason than it is adding a cost to people who have already spent in the local economy by buying overnight accommodation.

Not to mention the fact that adding such a cost would be marketing suicide for a stretch of coastline only just finding its feet again after decades of seemingly irreversible decline.

Paying a bit extra for every night you stay works in the likes of Venice because, well, it’s Venice, maybe not so much Herne Bay.

So may I make an appeal to those of you planning a jaunt to Kent’s coast this year?

Please don’t forget that it’s an attractive place to visit because it is being buoyed by a visitor economy which means everyone who spends some time here should spend a little cold hard cash during their stay. It doesn’t have to be lots. But don’t be guests who don’t thank their hosts - buy something while you’re here.

In other words, before you pack that picnic, just ponder whether it would be worth buying some freshly fried cod and chips, necking a freshly poured cool beer, buying tickets to an attraction or snapping up some souvenirs of what, inevitably (it’s the Kent coast, after all), will be a lovely day out. It all helps.