Running along the southern edge of the Isle of Wight’s downs, Military Road overlooks the stunning emerald sweep of Brighstone Bay.

Thousands of visitors each year glimpse the breathtaking view of the white chalk cliffs, towering out of the sea along the coast to Freshwater.

But the elements are now taking their toll as coastal erosion threatens long stretches of the road.

Campaigners now want the picturesque route saved.

Rapid erosion

While coastal erosion has been affecting Military Road for the last three decades, the process has speeded up considerably in the last few years, including this past winter.

Fresh water coming off the downs has eaten away at the cliffs, creating new chines (valleys) and bringing the cliff edge perilously close to the road.

A tarmac car park has huge ‘bites’ out of it with a jagged line where the land has just fallen away down to the beach below – barriers have gone up to stop cars going over the edge.

The edge of the road itself is so close to the coast now that on one stretch it has been reduced to to one lane.

Not only is Military Road the main route along the south west coast of the island, it is also a major draw for tourists.

Four thousand people are supporting a campaign to lobby the council to stop the road from falling into the sea.

Potential solutions

The Isle of Wight Council has said a permanent solution could cost up to £10m which, in the current times of tight finances, the council insists it cannot afford.

Bypassing the worst spot would cost £500,000 but would only buy a short amount of time as the erosion continues to gnaw into the coastline.

The likely solution is that the middle section will be closed, creating two cul-de-sacs and sending traffic inland through nearby villages like Brook.

These tiny villages could face a fivefold increase in traffic, as traffic from the island’s main south coast road is diverted through the narrow village streets, many of which do not have footpaths.

Brighstone parish councillor David Tolfree said: “It’s totally unsuited to the volume and nature of the traffic – coaches and heavy vehicles. This increase in traffic will basically destroy the village.”

Mr Tolfree insisted the parish council had been “lobbying for years” about the erosion issue and something should have been done before the road reached critical stage.

He said: “This isn’t something new – this has been predicted and it seems there hasn’t been any contingency for this occurrence.”

Council finances

With council finances tight, and no funding from central government, the island’s road authorities say they cannot afford the £10m estimated to keep Military Road open.

Edward Giles, Isle of Wight Council cabinet member for environment and transport, explained gaining planning permission would be a long and costly process, given the land needed for a diversion is owned by the National Trust.

He said: “There are a great deal of difficulties in diverting the road because of the various conservation designations which affect the land.”

Campaigners point to the council recently agreeing a £300 million Private Finance Initiative scheme initiative for the island’s highways. But Mr Giles insisted the scheme is solely for road maintenance and “not available” for diverting roads suffering from erosion.

A public consultation will offer local people the chance to air their opinions before the council’s cabinet decide the fate of Military Road, probably in September.

Mr Giles said: “If we have a dialogue, it would better inform everyone as to what the problems really are.”

Story by Dominic Blake on the BBC website

THE son of a Hampshire peer is leading the fight against a new action plan that has angered a group of coastal landowners.

The Hon Ralph Montagu says people living on privately owned sections of foreshore could be denied the right to defend their homes from the sea.

Coastal erosion is posing a threat to about 70 homes between Calshot and Lymington, including a beach house owned by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.

However, the draft North Solent Shoreline Management Plan divides the area into six sections that have been given varying levels of protection.

Parts of the coastline will be safeguarded under a policy known as “Hold the Line” while neighbouring sections will be left to crumble.

The different designations take several factors into account, including erosion risks and land use. But campaigners say it means some residents will be refused planning permission to extend or improve their sea defences, allowing gaps to develop.

Ralph Montagu is chairman of the North Solent Coastal Group, which is calling for the document to be amended.

Members want the whole shoreline to be designated Hold the Line, ensuring that every landowner has the right to defend their property.

Mr Montagu said: “The area needs to be treated as a single unit because the elements do not recognise man-made boundaries. Erosion or a breach in a stretch abandoned under the plan could have disastrous consequences for neighbouring landowners trying to ‘hold the line’.”

The plan covers more than 380km of Hampshire and West Sussex coast and has been produced by 15 local authorities, including New Forest District Council.

Mr Montagu and fellow members of the group presented a petition to council leader Barry Rickman outside Lord Montagu’s beach house near Needs Ore.

Cllr Rickman said the document could be revised in the light of fears expressed by the landowners.

“I understand the concerns that have been raised and I hope that we will be able to soften our approach,” he said.

Story in the Daily Echo

PARTS of our coastline could be allowed to flood in the future as the government struggles to fund sea defences along the Solent coastline.

A drive along the A27 in a few decades’ time might see a wildly different scene to the one we see today – with the tide covering parts of beauty spots such as Farlington Marshes, and Hayling Island being a smaller land mass.

It comes as a major consultation began last month on how the Solent coastline will be defended over the next 100 years.

Dozens of concerned Hayling residents made their way to Havant’s Civic offices, on February 9, to look at the draft proposals for Chichester and Langstone Harbours (see below), over the next 100 years.

Twelve local authorities in the Solent area have banded together to come up with a blueprint for how the coast might be defended.

The North Solent Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) is one of 25 blueprints covering the entire English and Welsh coastline that will need to be submitted to the government later this year.

Some shorelines should not see any change, whereas others, particularly around Langstone and Chichester Harbours, may have to be realigned, according to the report.

Ultimately, council leaders say it boils down to money.

Experts have decided most of the Portsmouth area – including Portsea Island – should continue to be defended by maintaining or improving sea defences, largely because the economic value of the city is too high for any of it to be lost.

But funding cannot be guaranteed for this and some less “economically valuable” areas, including some of Hayling’s agricultural land – and wildlife habitat could be lost in the never-ending battle for limited government funds.

Andrew Colenutt, SMP project manager, said the importance of the existing defences could not be underestimated.

He said: “In the Solent, the land is very low-lying and the flood risk is considerable.

“If you take the defences away, already a minimum of 50,000 homes would be flooded.

“The sea defences are protecting 50,000 properties straight away – and that’s the minimum.

“We’ve not really got much room to move back and retreat inland.”

Mr Colenutt described Farlington Marshes as a “hot potato” out of all the coastal areas as there was a frenzy of debate over its future.

In 100 years’ time, experts say the area might have to retreat as funds cannot continue to be thrown at maintaining its sea walls.

He said: “I think we know that something will need to happen at some point in the future, but it’s not easy to say at the moment exactly what or when.

“Everybody knows Farlington is not sustainable to keep as it is.

“If you spend £1million on defences, you have to protect at least £1million of property or land.

“While agricultural land is important, it may not be as economically valuable as an industrial estate or residential area.”

Allowing land to flood, however, is a legal minefield and wherever a designated wildlife habitat is lost, it will need to be recreated elsewhere.

One staggering fact about the Solent, and why people are being encouraged to have their say, is that more than 60 per cent of the shoreline is privately-owned and most of this land has privately-maintained defences.

Councillor Jenny Wride, who heads coastal management for Havant Borough Council, said: “I think to a large extent, it’s the owners of a property being prepared to step up and not expect the local council to be able to attract funding to protect every mile of coastline.

“It will be for landowners to stop and decide what’s going to happen to their property, whether they hold the line or realign. It’s a very important consultation.”

But Cllr Wride said there was no need to buy sand bags to protect your home from being inundated with water.

She added: “We are not anticipating losing or having to move any dwellings. ‘We are committed to holding the line.”

Yet, Cllr Wride admitted we all might have to face up to the fact that land could be lost – especially if we are to believe experts who warn the sea will be more than three feet higher in 100 years due to further melting of the polar ice caps.

She said: “It’ll be a constant battle. In an ideal world, we would not want any of our coastline to flood. But we can’t hold back the tide.

“There will be some hard decisions to be made.”

Hold the line or do we withdraw?

HAVANT Borough Council’s strategy with the Environment Agency is to make four recommendations for each affected area of coastline.

They are:-
Hold the line – maintain or upgrade the level of protection provided by existing defences

Advance the line – build new defences seaward of existing defences

Managed realignment – allow retreat of the shoreline with management to control or limit movement

No active intervention – not to invest in providing or maintaining defences.

Hayling Island is awaiting for its own protection plan to be drawn up, which the Environment Agency has promised to start work on later this year.

So far these are the areas identified by the North Solent Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) and the Government’s likely attitude to providing funding.

Story in the Hayling Islander

Houses on stilts, floating communities and returning urban areas to saltmarsh should all be considered as part of radical approaches to tackling the threat posed to coastal cities by flooding, a report suggested today.

The study by the Royal Institute of British Architects’ think tank Building Futures and the Institution of Civil Engineers warned that the UK’s 12,000km (7,500 miles) of coastline would be increasingly at risk of floods.

Rising sea levels, sinking landmass in the south and increased storminess will all put coastal towns and cities at risk, and planners will need to decide how to tackle the threat.

At-risk areas could cope with the risk of flooding by retreating inland and allowing water to flood parts of the city, defending urban sites in innovative ways or “attacking” the problem, for example by building out into the water.

The report focuses on two at-risk cities, Hull and Portsmouth, and lays out possible strategies for coping with flood risk up to 2100. The scenarios were masterminded by architects, civil engineers, planners and city designers, developers, policy-makers, ecologists and “futurologists”.

According to the “retreating” scenario, Hull, which is mostly only 2m to 4m above sea level but is an important port, could see the historic centre protected and turned into an island linked to the rest of city by bridges.

Much of the urban area alongside the river could become saltmarsh, which provides a natural defence against flooding, while new developments could be shifted to higher ground and a relocated train station built on stilts.

Or the city could be defended with a sea wall made up of a series of walled reservoirs, backed by a number of creeks to relieve pressure on water systems, and used for grey water storage, reedbeds, fish farms and even recreation.

A more attacking strategy could see a network of platforms along the coast, perhaps using recycled oil platforms, for a mixture of homes, businesses and leisure centres, with energy provided by tidal stream generators on the seabed.

Buildings in the city could be retrofitted to cope with flooding while low-lying land could be changed from residential to recreational areas.

Portsmouth is also an important city and harbour – particularly for the Navy – and also low-lying.

For the city to take up a strategy of “retreating”, the M27 would have to be moved, while frontage could be returned to public beach and east Portsea Island turned into saltmarsh – providing the scope for the biggest urban saltmarsh sheep farm in the UK. Other development could include algae farming.

Or it could be defended with tide gates to protect against tidal surges and a new sea wall as a “living wall” with commercial, residential and recreational properties included to entice private investment in the defences.

Under the attacking strategy drawn up in the report, a series of inter-connected piers could extend from the land, which would have a two-tier design with transport underneath a pedestrian top layer.

The piers would contain residential, business and recreational development, and lead to the creation of marinas and floating communities as part of efforts to increase the amount of space in the city available to be developed.

Homes in vulnerable areas could be adapted so that living space was moved upstairs while new development could be on stilts or able to float in times of flooding.

RIBA president Ruth Reed said: “The scenarios we have created are extreme, but it is an extreme threat we are facing.

“Approximately 10 million people live in flood risk areas in England and Wales, with 2.6 million properties directly at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea.

“However, if we act now, we can adapt in such a way that will prevent mass disruption and allow coastal communities to continue to prosper. But the key word is ‘now’.”

Chairman of the ICE steering group, Ben Hamer, said: “A proactive and united, almost war-like approach is needed if we are to win the battle against what is set to be our biggest challenge in the next century, the ‘water invasion’.”

He said the UK needed to urgently change the way it planned, built and designed at-risk communities, and there would have to be some very creative thinking about how solutions could be developed to be financially sustainable.

Bret Davies, coastal engineer at Portsmouth City Council, said the report was designed to provoke discussion but the “retreat” and “attack” proposals were not realistic for the city.

“At the moment, we’re working with other councils on producing a North Solent shoreline management plan. Residents can have a say on this now, before it’s finalised.

“The plan proposes defending the Portsmouth coastline for the next 100 years by ‘holding the line’ – which means improving and maintaining the sea defences we have now.

“We believe this is the best long-term policy for Portsmouth, and an affordable one.”

Story on the 24dash.com website

Low-lying coastal areas could get no investment in their sea defences as the government draws up a 100-year plan to ‘prioritise’ flood protection.

The Environment Agency is set to release a blueprint next month for how a 240 mile stretch of coastline along the Solent will be protected over the next century.

The proposals, from Hurst Spit in the west to Selsey Bill in the east, will detail how much funding is likely to be given to different sections of coastline.

But, while some areas could get greater flood protection, some areas may have to do without any upgrade of existing defences.

The Agency has admitted that due to limited funding it may not be possible to continue to defend certain land or property from flooding or erosion.

Each stretch of coastline will be given one of four designations.

The vast majority of areas are likely to fall into the ‘hold the line’ designation, meaning that the existing level of protection will be maintained or upgraded.

A small number could be ‘advance the line’, meaning that new defences are built seaward.

Some will come under ‘managed realignment’, meaning that the shoreline will be allowed to retreat under the control of flood experts from the Agency.

The final category for some areas could be ‘no active intervention’, meaning the government will not provide any more cash for flood protection.

Details of the designations will be released when a public consultation of the plans, called the North Solent Shoreline Management Plan, begins on February 1.

Civic leaders urged people living near the coast to get involved in the consultation.

Councillor Jenny Wride, in charge of coastal management at Havant Borough Council, said: ‘I would encourage landowners and residents who live near to the coastline to come along to the exhibition to find out more about the plan.’

Cllr David Swanbrow, in charge of planning at Fareham Borough Council, added: ‘It is vitally important that we are planning for the future, not just in the short-term but for the next 100 years.’

The consultation will run for three months. The proposals and feedback forms will be available to view at northsolentsmp.co.uk

Story by Jeff Travis in the Portsmouth News

PLANS to protect hundreds of low-lying homes and two schools from flooding have been delayed because of a lack of cash – just days after the Islander revealed them publicly.

The Environment Agency wants to fork out £1.8million to shore up sea defences on Hayling.

But work has been postponed for at least three years because the agency says it doesn’t have the money.

The project was due to begin next year, but will now be delayed until 2012 at the earliest.

Havant MP David Willetts said: “It’s good news and bad news. There is going to be flood protection, but it’s going to be later than we had hoped.”

Having pressed the the Environment Agency for more than a year over its proposals for the Island, the Tory said: “They have got to get a move on.

“Hayling Island is our answer to the Maldives. It’s a real issue for Hayling if the sea levels rise.”

The project will target three weak spots which are still vulnerable to flooding.

At Mill Rythe, the EA wants to strengthen sea defences to protect two schools and the holiday village.

Two secondary flood embankments will also prevent flooding to the Island’s main road, the A3023 Havant Road.

Sea defences will be rebuilt between Langstone Bridge and Stoke Common and this should reduce the chance of flooding during a storm on the only road into Hayling.

The agency plans to improve defences at Saltmarsh Lane to protect homes in the area.

The work will also prevent any of the Hayling Billy coastal path – which is popular with walkers – being lost to the sea.

Environment Agency spokesman Joe Giacomelli said funding had been delayed.

He said: “Due to the increasing pressures of sea level rise, other projects from around the country have been given a higher priority.

“Although precise timings are not clear yet, the latest indications are that funding to start our north Hayling works will be available for the year 2011/12.

“Construction works should follow in 2012/13, following completion of the detailed design and necessary environmental assessments.

“We will continue to make the case for the funding to be allocated sooner.”

The work has still to be approved by Natural England, which protects flora and fauna along the Island’s coastline. But it is not thought there will be any objections.

The plans were originally announced in early December following a flood awareness roadshows at the Langstone Hotel in Northney and St Andrew’s Church in Southwood Road, Eastoke.

Mr Willetts toured the area with Mr Humphrys looking at the areas at risk and inspected information aimed at encouraging the public to sign up for the EA’s Floodline Warnings Direct service.

That automatically warns residents of possible coastal flooding – if you call 0845 988 1188.

The public body also issues three guides:–
Preparing for a flood which contains practical advice on what to do to protect your home and family, by creating a flood plan and making up a kit of essential items.

During a flood which offers advice on how to stay safe and what to do if water levels rise rapidly to protect property and save lives

After a flood provides guidance on how to recover after a flood, including cleaning up and filing an insurance claim and, if necessary, finding temporary accommodation.

It also contains essential information to ensure your home is protected from future flooding.

Mr Humphrys told the Islander: “People must be prepared for floods and know what to do if the worst happens. All households should read our three new guides as in many cases, preparation makes a big difference.

To obtain copies of the guide log on to www.environment-agency.gov.uk/flood or call the Floodline on the number above.

Story in the Hayling Islander

CAMPAIGNERS fighting to save Lymington Harbour have issued a rallying cry to back the installation of multi-million pound breakwaters.

The town’s Harbour Commission has applied for consent to start what would be a major engineering project at the mouth of Lymington River.

Now they are begging the thousands of boat owners who use the renowned yachting area to get behind the sea defence scheme.

Experts say the 12-acre salt marsh which protects the harbour, could disappear in 30 years unless urgent action is taken.

The plan is to create two breakwaters at the mouth of Lymington River to shield the harbour from the full force of the sea’s waves. It would mean a 180m rock construction on one side of the estuary and a 200m equivalent on the other.

Getting the go-ahead for the scheme hinges on gathering mass support and convincing a number of key regulatory bodies that such an undertaking would be beneficial.

Read the full story by Julian Robinson on the This is Hampshire website