Railway tracks and tramways associated with the Auchenharvie Colliery pit and its bing or spoil heap extended into the dune slack area until lifted in the 1940s.

In the 1970s a couple of small buildings were all that was left of the old colliery and satellite photographs show their foundations and the extent of the spoil heap.

The Stevenston Burn was dammed to supply the water for this shallow canal that carried coal from local pits to the harbour at Saltcoats.

It is not known if this was carried out at Stevenston, however very large quantities of ash were produced from coal used by the magnesia and salt works at Saltcoats.

Rarer sand dune vegetation such as Babington's Orache (Atriplex glabriuscula) and Isle of Man cabbage (Coincya monensis monensis) have been recorded,[1] together with typical sand dune wild flowers, including European marram grass (Ammophila arenaria), lyme grass (Leymus arenarius), kidney vetch, tufted vetch, common restharrow (Ononis repens), European searocket (Cakile maritima), sea campion (Silene maritima), prickly saltwort (Kali turgida), Scottish bluebell (Campanula rotundifolia), bird's-foot trefoil, ragwort (Senecio jacobaea), sea mayweed (Tripleurospermum maritimum) and sea sandwort (Honckenya peploides).

Plants such as lyme grass were so important in stabilising sand dunes that during the 17th-century reign of William III, the Scottish Parliament passed a law protecting it.

[7] The sand dunes and shoreline plants support large numbers and a wide variety of insect species.

[8] Eurasian skylark (Alauda arvensis) and meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis) are likely sightings and ravens (Corvus corax) are sometimes seen.

Above this level and out of reach of all but the highest tides, dune grasses trap sand and cause a 'pioneer zone' of mobile fore-dunes to develop.

[4] Severe storms and flooding from the Stevenston Burn are two of the factors that periodically have a more or less dramatic effect upon the dune system and beach structure.

The storms of the winter of 2014 resulted in the linear loss of several metres of the sea facing fore dunes, exposing previously buried old fencing and also eroding the coal mine spoil heap section with concomitant release of rocks and smaller shingle that was moved by long shore drift and covered relatively large areas of the previously sandy upper beach.

Landfill tax credits collected by North Ayrshire Council provided funding to undertake environmental improvement projects within the LNR.

ASH design + assessment was commissioned by the Environmental Trust for Scotland on behalf of North Ayrshire Council to undertake a project at Stevenston Beach.

The aim of this project was to conserve this locally scarce natural resource and reduce erosion by pedestrians and quad bikes randomlymoving through the dune area to access the beach.

The completed scheme successfully resolved much of the dune erosion issues and has made Stevenston Beach LNR more easily accessible to the community and users of the nearby Sandylands Holiday Park, while helping to preserve the habitats within this important local nature reserve.