Posted on Damian Carrington’s Environment Blog on the Guardian website

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, that is the government’s cuts to flood and coastal defence spending. I need your help to reveal the impact the cuts will have on new defences because, as it stands, just weeks from the new financial year, no one knows.

Below, I’ll relate the farcical example of the funding for the proposed coastal defences in Felixstowe town and how the Prime Minister, David Cameron, appears to be more worried by flooding abroad than at home. But first let’s consider the byzantine and opaque way in which defence projects get the go-ahead.

Life is too short to go into the details here, but in brief the Environment Agency sends a list of “indicative allocations” to the relevant regional committees, suggesting the possible funding outcomes for proposed projects. Many of these projects have had years of preparatory work done and boast cost-benefit ratios of 5-to-1 or better. What follows the sending of the lists is lots of back and forth before the EA board decides which projects get funded.

The EA says it will complete all defences under construction but that fewer new projects will start because of the government cuts. (The government says the cuts are 8%, everyone else says 27%).

So I want to see the lists of the projects being considered and then see which ones fail to get funded in March. The EA indicative allocation lists are not secret, but neither can the EA give them to me. I have asked again and will make a request under the Freedom of Information Act if needed. Watch this space.

In the meantime, if you live in an area at risk of flooding or of coastal erosion and there is a proposal for new defences that has yet to be funded, I need your help. Please add a mention of it in the comments below and put a few extra details into the form at the end of this post. I’ll then be able to highlight projects that go unfunded following the cuts.

And so to Felixstowe. The town section of the sea defences has in places a “zero-year” lifespan, according to analysis by engineers Mott MacDonald. As seafront resident, Paul Marsh, told me: “You can see it crumbling before your eyes. If we got the wrong weather something very bad could happen very quickly.”

After 10 years of investigations, the planned £10m scheme to rebuild the defense was dropped from the EA’s indicative list on the 23 December. Now, after a huge local outcry, it is back on the list. “It’s like a yo-yo,” said Marsh, adding that the stress caused by the uncertainty and the unfathomable process is huge.

The EA told me: “Prior to publication of the draft allocations, we reviewed all schemes nationally. Felixstowe was removed, however following further discussions with Defra on funding guidance, we were able to reinstate it.”

Like Marsh, Labour’s shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh is unhappy about the uncertainty:

“The government is being shockingly complacent about the impact of a 27% cut to flood defence spending. Homeowners and businesses want certainty about flood defence schemes not more delays about which projects will get funding or not.

“Labour increased flood defence funding each year by more than inflation following the 2007 floods. It is imperative for the Government to reassure the public that they are taking the necessary steps to provide flood protection for everyone, especially in vulnerable areas.”

There have been recent terrible floods in Australia, Brazil and Sri Lanka, and the prime minister rightly sent his condolences to prime minister Julia Gillard and president Dilma Roussef.

Both the prime minister and his enviroment secretary Caroline Spelman agree that the risk of flooding is rising due to global warming, in the UK and elsewhere. Yet, while claiming to protect flood defence spending, they have driven through cuts and then tried to spin the result as “broadly the same“.

In my opinion, that is not acceptable and I hope you will help me document the impact of those actions.

Blog by Damian Carrington on the guardian.co.uk website

Consultation’s now closed as far as the Shoreline Management Plan for The Wash and that bit of the Norfolk Coast’s concerned.

There’ll doubtless be an uproar at some point, when people wake up to the sections which apply to Hunstanton’s much-loved candy cliffs.

Erosion of same won’t just threaten the Lighthouse within a generation – depending which projection or forecast you believe.

It will also spell some serious consequences for Cliff Parade, unless something’s done – as opposed to the leave it to natural forces approach outlined in the draft Shoreline Management Plan.

We wonder what people living up there think. Could this be the next Happisburgh within a generation..?

CCAG was created ten years ago today. It grew out of the deep frustration and fear within the community.

Frustration because Government’s attitude and approach to the management of our coast seemed to be devoid of any common sense or understanding.

Fear because the prospects for individuals and the community were extremely worrying. Everyone felt they had no voice and were being abandoned out of hand.

Over those ten years some things have changed, some have not. To a lesser extent fear still plays a part in some people’s lives here. However frustration has been reduced because we know we have played a significant role in beginning to change Governments attitude and approach to coast management.

We have become increasingly proactive in seeking change that will benefit all coastal communities not just our own.

It has been our fervent desire to be a leading part of the solution rather than a leading part of the problem. To that end we have worked extremely hard to understand the problems and difficulties all levels of Government face when attempting to manage the coast.

We have been, and remain, committed to fostering a wider understanding by all involved of each others problems and feel very strongly that we must continue the effort and build on the achievements of the last ten years.

Climate change and sea level rise will undoubtedly test our collective resolve as we move through this century. Of paramount importance will be our ability, with adequate institutional arrangements, to manage our way through.

CCAG is committed absolutely to working with everyone involved irrespective of political party or level of authority to achieve a socially just coastal philosophy and policy which we can all ‘buy in to’.

Article by Malcolm Kerby on the Coastal Concern Action Group website

It has been extremely interesting watching the televised ‘grilling’ of Bankers by the Treasury Select Committee over recent days.

What occurs to me is the stark parallels which can be drawn from the way the Banks were (mis)managed and the way we (mis)manage the coast.

It seems to me the demise of the Banks (which has led to financial chaos) is due largely to suspect ‘Risk Management’ techniques and the marked absence of good old fashioned sound banking principles and practice. The result is financial chaos on an unprecedented scale.

Read the full article by Malcolm Kerby on the Coastal Concern Action Group website

I note with interest the press release from Natural England (NE) covering their decision to appeal the recent High Court judgement re Peter Boggis and the Easton Bavents cliffs.

Sean Thomas (Regional Director NE) says the judgement “threatens to stifle the ways in which advice and expert opinion can be used to inform planning and development decisions”

That, I would respectfully contend, is absolute rubbish. What it may do is force NE to take a more open, honest democratic approach which must surely be in the public interest.

Read the full article by Malcolm Kerby on the Cosatal Concern Action Group website.

Surely we (the taxpayers) have a right to expect a constructive lead from our Government on issues as important to the well being of our island nation as coast management? What we are getting is a whole series of ‘measures’, ‘plans’, ‘strategies’ and ‘policies’ emanating from the centre which are unworkable, unacceptable and seem to increasingly prove how little comprehension exists within central Government and its Quangos of how the coast and its communities function, or what is needed to maintain their functionality through global warming, climate change and sea level rise.

Read the full article by Malcolm Kerby on the Coastal Concern Action Group website.

There surely can be few other areas of Government which provide poorer value for money than DEFRA’s Flood and Coast Protection (F&CP) department.

F&CP now has it’s own “Bermuda Triangle” the three sides of which are DEFRA, Environment Agency (EA) and Natural England (NE).

Dubbed Bermuda Triangle because if one lives on the coast and happens to be caught between those three (one department and two quangos) it is quite likely that one will disappear into the administrative, process led and target orientated black hole which they seem to create.

The only thing which seems to disappear faster than any individual caught in it is taxpayers money.

Read the rest of Malcom Kerby’s comments on the Coastal Concern Action Group website

I really like this: ‘oceans define borders but defy politics’ This makes me think about Britain’s eroding coastline. Certain parts of the coast especially in Norfolk is eroding faster than ever before. There are communities such as Happisburgh, Walcott, Mundesley that in the not so distant future might be completely swallowed up by the sea and wiped of the map. The U.K government says it is to costly to protect the whole of the coastline. ‘Managed retreat’ is the term scientists has given this approach, meaning that governments around the world are making decisions about what it can afford to save and what has to be sacrificed. A big part of the Norfolk coast seem to be out of luck, the sea defences are considered unsustainable and new ones will not be built. This mean that many people stand to loose their homes to the sea, farmers will loose their livelihood, historic sites and nature reserves will disappear. Unlike in countries like The Netherlands where compensation is given for loss of land to erosion, in the U.K there is no compensation. The effect the sea has on the land has become a political issue. How to decide what is protected and what is to be sacrificed? And there is talk of what could be Britain’s first climate change refugees.

Read more on her blog

At a packed public meeting in Hickling last night, the former Environment Secretary and Chairman of the David Cameron’s Quality of Life Commission, John Gummer MP, called for the Government to abandon its policy of managed retreat and to return to what he called a policy of, “what we have we hold.”

Mr Gummer, who was visiting North Norfolk at the request of the Conservative Spokesman for the area, Trevor Ivory, said, “It is a scandal that with all the resources and technology that are available to us today, our Government is telling us that we can no longer defend land that has been defended for centuries. It is an insult to those previous generations who had less, but still made sacrifices to defend out coastline.”

“But what is even worse is that we are leaving future generations to pick up the bill, because wherever we draw the line, we will have to defend our coast at some point. By failing to fund coastal defences now, what we are really saying is that we are going to leave it to our children and grandchildren to pay later.” Mr Gummer added.

Read the full article by Trevor Ivory on www.trevorivory.com