SEA defence campaigners will today urge top decision-makers to help remove legal barriers to enable public-private partnerships to “hold the line” on the Suffolk coast for at least the next 20 years.

Lord Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, is due to see the eroding coastline and meet groups which are opposing the agency’s plans to phase out the maintenance of flood walls in Suffolk’s estuaries.

The agency – working within updated guidelines issued by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – believes the work would not be sustainable and cannot be justified, economically or environmentally, especially in the face of rising sea levels.

However, campaigners will today call on Lord Smith to help local authorities and landowners to “hold the line” for the next 20 years to allow more knowledge to be developed about coastal trends.

In particular they want them to help remove legal barriers which may prevent landowners raising existing earth walls to the height agreed following the disastrous east coast floods of 1953. Many of the walls have slumped or become undermined due to lack of maintenance.

Campaigners want local authorities and landowners to have the unhindered freedom to create public-private partnerships to carry out sea defence work in some vulnerable areas.

Lord Smith, whose visit has been arranged by Suffolk Coast Against Retreat (SCAR), set up two years ago with the help of Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer, will travel by helicopter from Bawdsey along the coast as far as Easton Bavents where a DIY sea defence scheme financed by landowner Peter Boggis was halted by Natural England, the Government’s countryside and conservation agency.

SCAR chairman, Graham Henderson, who is co-ordinating today’s visit, said last night: “Our fundamental message to Lord Smith will be that we want to hold the line in the medium term – over the next 20 years – to allow more knowledge to be developed. In that time we want to see the walls maintained.”

Mr Henderson said public-private partnerships could be the way forward with local authorities and landowners providing the finance for schemes.

“While extra money from the government would be welcome, we can’t see that happening in the present economic climate but we need help from Defra and the Environment Agency in removing the legal barriers to carry out schemes.

“We appear to have a problem in raising sea defence walls to the heights specified following the 1953 floods – currently it cannot be done without the approval of the Environment Agency and Natural England and without planning permission.

“We want them to help us rather than put barriers in the way. We are not saying this should be done willy-nilly but we want more help to get through the legalities.”

Mr Henderson revealed that talks about this issue – involving the Environment Agency, Natural England, the NFU and the Country Land and Business Association – had been taking place and the next one was scheduled for November.

“Since we responded to the agency’s flood defence plans we feel we have been listened to – that is exemplified by the way the eastern area flood defence committee has not accepted the Blyth strategy. But it has to be a two-way process,” he added.

Lord Smith is due to arrive at Felixstowe by car and to take the ferry across the Deben to the café at Bawdsey where he will have a private meeting with members of SCAR.

He will then visit East Lane, Bawdsey where a public-private partnership is behind a project which will see “greenfield land sold for housing development and the £2.5 million proceeds of the sale used to defend a stretch of coast which includes a Martello tower.

Lord Smith will return to Bawdsey for lunch before boarding a helicopter and viewing the coastal defences en route to Southwold, where he is due to have a private meeting with members of the local authority-run Blyth Strategy Group and the local campaign organisation, the Blyth Estuary Group.

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “The sustainable management of the coast requires a strategic approach and a regulatory framework within which sea defences can be built and maintained to ensure that legal obligations are met.

“We believe that the current arrangements provide protection of the public interest and would not wish to see a relaxation that could jeopardise community and environmental interests. The current consenting regime and consultation process is in place to make sure that building of defences takes into account the interest of the wider community.”

Story by David Green in the East Anglian Daily Times