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We live by the coast in the South and have a bush that is just 2 years old and last year it suffered with raspberry beetles as all the leaves were eaten away and looked like netting! I cut off the infected leaves but the same thing happened again this year and after seeking advice online, have cut the canes down to the ground and disposed of them safely, turned over the soil and mulch around the base area to expose any grubs but am now wondering if we need to purchase new raspberry canes and give up on the current ones. Any advice would be very welcome.
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That's not raspberry beetles. Raspberry beetle larvae eat the fruit themselves, tunnelling into them.
What you have is probably raspberry sawfly larvae. They eat the leaves. Cut the plants down won't really help, so you probably shouldn't have done that.
Spraying will obviously get rid of them, but assuming you don't want to do that then you need to be alert, and as soon as you start to see leaves being eaten, check all of the nibbled ones (especially the undersides) daily for small caterpillar-like larvae.
Purchasing new canes won't help. The problem is not and never was endemic to your specific plants.
They overwinter in leaf litter as pupae, so disturbing the mulch to expose them is a good idea. However, adult sawflies, well, fly, so it's not like they can't just move in from elsewhere. You just need to learn to spot the signs and kill them on sight.
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