DISTRICT engineers have admitted there is no back-up plan if multi-million pound funding is not secured to protect Lyme’s East Cliff.

Phase IV of West Dorset District Council’s coastal protection works will safeguard roads, businesses, homes and utilities from coastal erosion.

The £21million scheme was last month given technical approval by the Environment Agency, but project leaders remained cautious over securing the funding from Defra. (more…)

More funding is needed if trailblazing work protecting the coastline is to continue and be rolled out across the country was the message from a two-day conference looking at how successful projects around the coastline in North Norfolk have been.

Leading figures from the Environment Agency and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who have a say on coastal policies and flooding, are in North Norfolk this week looking at the work which has taken place as part of North Norfolk District Council’s Coastal Pathfinder projects.

The council was awarded £3m in 2009 from the government’s pathfinder programme to explore ways of helping coastal communities plan and adapt to coastal change. (more…)

Communities threatened by coastal erosion have been warned that they should expect to contribute towards protection schemes.

Speaking prior to next month’s Suffolk Coast Against Retreat (SCAR) annual general meeting (AGM), chairman Graham Henderson said that in the current financial climate it was unlikely the Government would completely fund defence work on behalf of homeowners, such as those living in Corton and Easton Bavents, near Southwold.

Mr Henderson, who lives at Felixstowe Ferry, said: “Overall I think it has been a progressive year. However we are still in a situation where the Government has not revealed all its cards and there’s no doubt that there’s going to be a shortage of money. (more…)

Two projects crucial to the revitalisation of erosion-blighted Happisburgh will take another step nearer realisation tomorrow.

Schemes to relocate the coastal village’s Beach Road car park and to replace nine cliff-edge homes, soon to be demolished, are due to come before North Norfolk District Council’s cabinet tomorrow morning.

Councillors are being recommended to support the transfer of ownership and management of the car park, and new public toilets which will be built in it, to Happisburgh Parish Council. (more…)

A treasured family home at risk of crumbling into the sea is to be demolished before Mother Nature can take hold.

Sitting on the cliff edge at Easton Bavents, near Southwold, Thursley has been in the Thrawle family for four generations. While a groundbreaking policy recently approved by the local council gives hope to Suffolk homeowners facing coastal erosion, it comes too late for this isolated, two-storey building.

The house will be demolished on April 4. (more…)

AN OPPONENT of plans to create a wetland habitat and flood scheme at Donna Nook claims the community has been “stabbed in the back” after a local authority announced it could not rely on its original grounds for refusal.

East Lindsey District Council has been preparing to be represented at an appeal lodged by the Environment Agency after its plan to create a wetland habitat and flood scheme at Donna Nook was refused last year.

The wetland would see acres of farmland flooded and would compensate for the loss of habitat around the Humber estuary due to coastal squeeze.

But in a U-turn, ELDC said things have since changed which meant its reasons for refusal could not be relied upon to win the appeal. (more…)

Owners of a north Norfolk holiday park perched above the sea have spent £190,000 of their own money shoring up the crumbling cliff to save their business.

Richard and Anna Hollis have bought 1,750 tonnes of armoured rock, which has been heaped around steel sheet pilings at the base of the eroding cliff that supports their Castaways Holiday Park in Bacton.

Experts had told the couple they would lose their cliff-edge caravans this year and, when their attempts to get help with funding failed, Mr and Mrs Hollis decided to go it alone. (more…)

PROPOSALS to protect Lyme’s East Cliff have been approved by the Environment Agency – but project leaders remain cautious over securing multi-million-pound funding.

The agency has given technical approval to West Dorset District Council’s phase four works, a £21million scheme to protect roads, businesses, homes and utilities from coastal erosion.

It means the council can appoint consultants to produce detailed designs and carry out environmental mitigation work ahead of construction. The design and advance works are estimated to cost the authority in the region of £2million. (more…)

A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation investigates how disadvantaged coastal communities are vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Coastal areas of the UK may be severely affected by climate change in the future. Some are already experiencing extreme storms or floods and the effects of sea level rise and coastal erosion. Climate change will pose risks and challenges for people, coastal economies and local industry. It may also affect access to, and quality of, basic goods and services. (more…)