GAINING more support from businesses is one of the keys to protecting Suffolk’s precious and beautiful coastal landscape, experts said today.

Working with companies that share a conservation commitment could provide vital funds and volunteer workers to embark on a series of special projects.

Managers of the officially designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) - which stretches from Kessingland to the Stour estuary - have drawn up a 20-year vision for the coastal strip known as the Suffolk Coast and Heaths. (more…)

The infrastructure network in the UK, including power stations, water plants, and transport systems is still far too vulnerable to flooding events according to a report, Flooding: Engineering Resilience, by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE).

In a section concentrating on the East of England, it also comments that:

“No other area of the UK is in such real and immediate danger from flooding as the East of England. It’s at risk from all sides: coastal erosion and flooding, tidal surges, river flooding and overflowing drains in towns and cities.

“In November 2007 Great Yarmouth and Ipswich came within 120mm of being swamped by a North Sea tidal surge. A controversial ‘managed realignment’ could sacrifice 6,000 ha of the Norfolk coastline to rising sea levels, according to the Environment Agency.”

Full details on the ICE website

New map shows Medway’s climate change threat.

Today, the World Development Movement has published a shocking new map and data, clearly showing the very real affect that climate change could have in Kent, especially in Medway.

Download this map as a pdf - share this map on your website

From a press release on the World Development Movement website

A top official from an agency considering the surrender of a large swathe of the Broads to the North Sea walked into the lions’ den last night to speak at a public meeting for the first time about the contentious scheme.

Shaun Thomas, the regional director of Natural England, spoke directly to the representatives of communities that face the threat of being flooded in between 20 to 50 years’ time.

And Mr Thomas told parish council leaders that more public meetings should be held over his organisation’s leaked report which contained proposals to abandon sea defences from Eccles to Winterton. (more…)

Officials from government agency Natural England will be in Norfolk this evening to discuss proposals to surrender 25sq miles of the Broads to the North Sea.

Tonight’s meeting at Somerton village hall, near Stalham, will be the first time the government’s conservations advisers have discussed the report at a forum in Norfolk. (more…)

On BBC Radio 4’s Open Country transmitted today features the Faversham Road Residents Association

Ever since the storm surge and the Great Flood of 1953 threatened the North Kent coast, the inhabitants of low lying areas of the county have lived with the risk that the sea may one day flood their homes.

Nick Crane visits the coast to meet those involved in the management of the shore, along with those who are being affected by the shifting sands and the rising tides. (more…)

RESIDENTS of a chalet park threatened by coastal erosion fear a town hall bid for a government sea defences grant has failed.

But Barrow Borough Council says that although its application for cash to build permanent sea defences to provide the 500-chalet West Shore Park from storm tides and erosion has failed, it will make another one next year.

Chalet owner Norman Lumb, who has lived at West Shore Park for seven years with his wife Patricia, is on a stretch of the park not protected by a temporary sea wall.

He said: “It is very worrying because we were under the impression something was going to be done this year.

“We are very happy living here but we have seen the deterioration caused by the sea and it is worrying people,”

More than 2,000 people have so far signed a petition put together by West Shore residents demanding permanent protection from the sea, which is still eating under the road in front of the chalets in the unprotected part.

The council paid £25,000 for a temporary rock barrier to be laid last year but it only stretches for half the length of the chalet park frontage and is only designed to last a year.

Some of its boulders have already been tossed about by the sea, but residents living behind it say it has made their lives better and lessened the threat from the sea.

Many retired and elderly people are among those living on the park.

Barrow Borough Council made the bid for grant aid this year, to pay for permanent defences in front of West Shore Park, to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

The council’s director of regeneration, Phil Huck, will tell councillors at the town hall executive committee next Wednesday that the temporary defences are being monitored and in the event of a collapse caused by the sea repairs, would have to be considered.

But in his report he says the temporary barrier only had a design life of a year.

His report says: “Although there has been movement of some blocks, particularly around the slipway, the defence is holding up well.”

He said the failed bid for a grant for permanent defences had only been a provisional one because the deadline had coincided with a report to the council from consultants Capita on the options for defending West Shore. A more detailed bid for aid which should score better will now be made next year instead.

Findings from a Manhood Going Dutch II workshop will be presented at a public community event on Tuesday.

The workshop, to be run by the Manhood Peninsula Partnership from Sunday to Tuesday, is designed to bring international experts and local people together to look at ways of dealing with local coastal defence issues.

It is scheduled to coincide with the consultation period for the draft coastal defence strategy prepared by the Environment Agency and Chichester and Arun District Councils.

Partnership chairman Cllr Peter Jones said the community was invited to make suggestions on how to manage the coastline, and numerous responses had been received.

“These suggestions, along with the options stated in the draft strategy, will be assessed by our Dutch and British delegates over three days,” he added.

“The experts’ findings will be presented at Earnley Concourse on June 24, and the Manhood community are invited to attend to hear what our delegates have concluded. It looks to be an interesting and important event.”

Spaces for the final presentation are limited and entrance to the event will be by ticket only.

Story in the Chichester Observer

Protecting Medmerry’s sea defences would be only ‘fighting against nature’.

That is the verdict of James Humphrys, Solent and South Downs area manager for the Environment Agency (EA), on the crumbling sea defences for the area in Selsey.

The EA announced its proposals to move the sea defence boundaries at Medmerry and carry out controlled flooding for the area over the next century.

The Pagham to East Head draft coastal defence strategy was announced on May 29 and in it the EA proposed to sustain Selsey’s sea defences.

“We all feel a deep wish to provide total protection for everybody all the time,” said Mr Humphrys.

“The reality is we can’t do that. We have a limited amount of money.”

The coast is divided into different stretches because of the different states and populations of each area.

The EA said it was in talks with Bunn Leisure about how they could both work together to find a solution for protecting Medmerry and the holiday park.

Mr Humphrys said: “In some parts of the peninsula it is actually fighting against nature and that’s not something we can continue to do. With Medmerry there is a lot of low-lying land with a very low population density. We will make arrangements with landowners about our proposals.”

Story in the Chichester Observer

There are concerns that the Government’s Shoreline Management Plan could increase flooding in the Rye area. It has led to the forming of a new pressure group The Defend Our Coast Asssociation (DOC).

Brigitte Bass, from the Association, said: “This has been set up by local people as a direct result of their dissatisfaction from the lack of local involvement and consultation by various Government bodies during the preparation of Shoreline Management Plans for our area, from Dungeness to Cliff End at Pett Level. (more…)