THIS year will be a crucial one for adapting to climate change, claims Lincolnshire County Council.

The council is reassuring people living along our coastline it will be doing all it can to focus on the issues of flooding and protection.

Following months of research and public consultations, the council and its partners are now preparing a workshop at Louth on Monday, January 11. (more…)

Homeowners in the coastal erosion hotspot Happisburgh will not have to wait for long into the new year for discussions to start about the payments they may receive for their houses under a project to tackle the impacts of coastal change.

As reported previously in the EDP, North Norfolk District Council has been awarded a £3m pot of government money to trial a number of ground breaking ‘pathfinder’ projects to tackle the impacts which erosion has on communities, individuals and businesses.

The most awaited of those projects is a plan for the council to offer to buy a small handful of the most at-risk houses along Beach Road in Happisburgh and demolish them, allowing their occupants to buy another home instead of being left with nothing. (more…)

A landscape artist has bought a house teetering on a cliff edge so he can document its demise.

Three properties have already had to be demolished on safety grounds because of a landslip at Knipe Point, overlooking Cayton Bay near Scarborough.

Kane Cunningham has paid £3,000 for the next bungalow set to fall over the cliff and will film its end.

He said the house symbolised “lost dreams, financial disaster and threatening sea levels”. (more…)

THE future of North Devon’s shoreline has come under the spotlight at a special meeting this week.

Devon County Council has welcomed a consultation draft review detailing how the coastline and coastal risks should be managed from Hartland Point to Anchor Head, near Weston-super-Mare, during the next 20, 50 and 100 years.

Cabinet members agreed with the North Devon and Somerset Shoreline Management Plan’s proposals to “hold the line” on developed sections of the coast to prevent flooding and erosion of the coastline at Devon’s coastal towns and resorts. They also supported a policy of “no active intervention” to the majority of the North Devon coast.

But the council objected to proposals for the “managed realignment” of sections from Instow and Yelland to Crow Point and Crow Neck. Councillors also asked for reassurance that investment in the Tarka Trail, National Cycle Network and the South West Coast Path will be taken into consideration and protected in the short to medium term. (more…)

RISES in sea levels will cause widespread disruption to many communities on the west Wales coast in the next few years.

Cardigan, St Dogmaels, Poppit and the Teifi estuary, Aberporth, Llangrannog and Newport could all be severely affected, a meeting in Cardigan was told.

Engineers for consultants carrying out the first series of local meetings for a new shoreline management plan for the region say climate change will cause sea level rises of between one and two meters in the next 50 years.

Greg Guthrie of Royal Haskoning consultants, a firm working on a 100-year shoreline plan for the whole of west Wales, told the Cardigan meeting: “There are places here living on the edge already and the coast is changing constantly. (more…)

A STRETCH of Welsh coastline could hold the key to the multi-billion-pound problem of coastal erosion.

Pioneering tests of the world’s first underwater coastal erosion monitoring system are to take place for the first time off Tenby’s South Beach next week.

It is believed the system, which employs a “grid” of electromagnetic sensors, could save billions of pounds and have a positive effect on millions of lives around the world by predicting exactly which parts of coastal areas will be eroded. (more…)

Rare reconnaissance photographs of the 1953 floods which engulfed large parts of East Anglia have come to light.

The pictures were shot by the RAF and, until recently, some of them were classified.

Watch the video clip on the BBC News website

A woman whose home is likely to fall into the sea says she will refuse thousands of pounds of compensation to which she would be entitled.

Bryony Nierop-Reading’s home is within a few yards of an eroding cliff edge, uninsurable and not worth much in financial terms.

But recently the government announced funds to allow the purchase and demolition of homes like this by the local authority, allowing her to ‘escape’ from the apparent Catch-22 situation and put the cash into another property.

But that was the moment she chose to take the less than obvious choice.

She says that when she bought her three-bedroom Happisburgh bungalow, on the now famous Beach Road, she knew the risks and has now refused to take any money, while issuing a warning that she will not be moved against her will. (more…)

Series telling the stories of people caught up in extreme weather events in the UK. From floods to hailstorms and even tornados, find out what happens when freak weather hits and show you how to protect yourself, your home and your family from disaster.

A dramatic storm leaves a couple’s dream home teetering on the edge of a cliff and it’s a lucky escape for the family whose house was struck by lightning.

Featuring a couple who invested in a hotel and campsite at the East Yorkshire village of Ulrome on the Holderness Coast.

Watch the episode on BBC iPlayer

DORSET’S Jurassic Coast is set to benefit from a £376,500 cash injection to help combat erosion and rising sea levels posed by climate change.

Dorset County Council environment chiefs teamed up with their East Devon counterparts to bid for a share of millions of pounds of Government cash.

The cash will be used on projects to benefit Preston Beach in Weymouth, Ringstead, Charmouth, Seatown and Swanage. (more…)