On the face of it, any cash offer for homes which were once considered to be worth close to nothing because they are at imminent risk from coastal erosion must be a bonus. But here leading coastal campaigner MALCOLM KERBY explains why he feels the 40pc to 50pc of market value offer likely for a set of homeowners in Happisburgh, reported on the EDP’s front page on Saturday, is simply not up to scratch.

“At the level quoted, which is 40pc to 50pc of no-risk market value, people will not be able to move on uninjured.

It is clear that something is better than nothing and perhaps many people will misunderstand what appear to be negative comments on the matter from me.
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Owners of clifftop homes at Happisburgh are just weeks away from receiving precedent setting cash offers for their threatened properties, potentially bringing a lengthy compensation saga to an end.

North Norfolk District Council has put forward a plan to offer a dozen homeowners between 40pc and 50pc of the theoretical value of their homes if they were inland and not at any risk from coastal erosion.

Council leaders said yesterday the offer was “a very important breakthrough” which was both sustainable and reliable – and could have impacts nationally if the model was adopted at government level.

People losing their homes to coastal erosion have previously faced a future with no compensation for the loss. (more…)

Coastal residents have called for more help in tackling erosion before they back a new shoreline management strategy.

A straw poll among 100 people who attended a meeting at Happisburgh voted to reject the latest SMP between Kelling and Lowestoft, because revisions did not go far enough to compensate the communities affected by cutting back on sea defences.

The key aim of the meeting held on Friday was to see what people felt about the newly revised draft SMP for the section of coast between Lowestoft and Kelling, drawn up in consultation by North Norfolk District Council, Great Yarmouth Borough Council, Waveney District Council and the Environment Agency. (more…)

SEASIDE communities dotted along the borough’s coast need to stand together to have any chance of getting government to pay for sea defences or compensation for those who lose their homes if they don’t.

The call came from Malcolm Kerby of Happisburgh who is fighting for social justice on a national stage, on Thursday in Ormesby St Margaret.

The campaigner, widely regarded as the most knowledgeable person outside Government on coastal erosion, was in the village urging people to sensibly object to the emerging second draft of the Shoreline Management Plan. (more…)

Inevitably the Kelling to Lowestoft Ness Second Generation Shoreline Management Plan (SMP2) has reared its ugly head again. This time it takes the form of a consultation on the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of the SMP2.

Whilst this latest consultation is concerned solely with the SEA it is, quite understandably, being interpreted by many local individuals and communities as a further ‘referendum’ on the SMP itself.

It is now almost six years since this particular SMP2 hit the press (Oct 04) and produced an absolutely unprecedented response (well over 2000 respondents) which expressed the stakeholders (public) utter revulsion and rejection of it and the policy path it proposed for many areas. There was and still remains no policy for or means of managing the consequences of its proposals.

Read Malcolm Kerby’s full comments on the CCAG Website

ANOTHER coastal community is rallying people to loudly oppose a high-level policy which they say threatens seaside homes and businesses.

Campaigners in Scratby this week joined those in Hopton in saying they had no intention of facing the future without a battle and have organised a public meeting in a bid to get more people voicing their concerns over the Shoreline Management Plan which is emerging from its final review.

According to some predictions more than 150 homes and businesses could be lost to erosion in the popular holiday village over the next 100 years, although a crucial funding decision on a £5m rock berm is in Government hands and officials -having spent around £200,000 working up the scheme – are hoping for a positive response. (more…)

The challenges of defending the Norfolk and Suffolk coast from the North Sea look set for another good airing in the coming months. ED FOSS examines the state of play of two key projects – the shoreline management plan for Kelling to Lowestoft and the Pathfinder schemes, which attracted millions of pounds of funding into East Anglia last winter.

Back in 2004, all hell was let loose when the Kelling to Lowestoft Ness shoreline management plan (SMP) was published in its first public draft form, suggesting some dramatic losses of land and homes along the coastline across the next century.

Following its traumatic arrival into the world, thousands of hours of work have been put into consultations, reports and meetings to try to bring the SMP to a standard acceptable to the mainly rural coastal communities which, at the time, justifiably feared they were about to be swept aside both literally by a pounding North Sea and metaphorically by a central government with a perceived urban focus.

The demand has, famously, been for communities facing losing homes and businesses to be guaranteed “social justice”, which in most cases constitutes financial compensation in all but name. (more…)

A controversial plan to deliberately breach a Wells flood bank has been discarded by environmental planners in response to a host of objections from landowners and townspeople.

The Environment Agency (EA) is finalising a draft shoreline management plan (SMP) designed to help the North Norfolk coast adapt to rising sea levels during the next century.

One of the ideas put forward was a £4.2m scheme to reconstruct Wells’ eastern defences further inland, allowing land behind the existing east bank to flood. (more…)

Hopton is aiming to swing a breaker’s ball through a coastal defence plan which suggests no defence.

Leaflets will be dropping on to more than 1,000 doormats urging villagers to take a stand against the Government’s Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) at a public meeting at Potters Leisure Resort on Thursday.

Its suggestion to abandon a huge stretch of the coast to the sea has caused a storm of protest. But Brian Hardisty, chairman of Hopton Coastal Action Group, says not enough people have woken up to the implications of the plan on house prices and the damage it could do to the tourist industry. (more…)

Historic seawalls at Cromer need £6.2m worth of repair work in the next two years, and double that figure to keep them in good shape for another century.

The multi-million pound bill comes as the town’s pier is also in line for £1m worth of urgent repairs.

More than a century of battering from the sand and flint-loaded waves has weakened the 110-year-old late Victorian sea walls.

Like the pier, the walls are not unsafe, but if nothing is done the walls will begin to fail – putting the promenade, pier access, and ultimately cliff top properties including hotels at risk, said North Norfolk District Council’s head of coastal strategy Peter Frew. (more…)