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…)

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…)

Every resident in West Norfolk could be charged for maintaining sea defences to secure the future of the area’s coastline.

A new report outlines different ways of paying for defences between Wolferton Creek and Hunstanton.

Councillors will discuss the North Norfolk Coastal Change Pathfinder Programme document tomorrow. (more…)

Plans to clear debris from the beach at Happisburgh have been approved and assurances have been 
offered about the possible impact it may have on the already occurring erosion.

The debris consists of the remains of old coastal defences, lost cliff-top structures and the old, now eroded lifeboat ramp.

Planning officers say that where possible, concrete remains will be incorporated into the existing rock defences. (more…)

They call him all sorts here in Hunstanton — the Rock Man, Fred Flintstone, Rocky, even King Canute, after the Viking warrior and English king who commanded the waves to stop. But while King Canute didn’t really do much — just sat on his throne ordering the waves to stop, and getting his feet wet when they didn’t — 73-year-old Michael Kennedy is rather more hands-on in his battle against the North Sea.

For six days a week (‘I always have one day off, so I can watch Chelsea’), 52 weeks a year and for the past 14-and-a-half years, he has been out in rain, sun, sleet, snow and hail (‘the only thing I can’t bear is fog’), collecting rocks from Hunstanton’s sandy beach and building his own makeshift sea-wall at the bottom of the cliffs.

Read the full story by Jane Fryer in the Daily Mail

The ground beneath campaigner Malcolm Kerby’s feet is on the move again – but this time the cause is not coastal erosion.

Mr Kerby is having a “big wobble” and needs to make some important decisions.

He turned 70 in December, his fight for justice in Happisburgh has reached a major landmark and now he is seriously considering whether or not to “throw in the towel.” (more…)

‘We have to be finished by 10 past three,” Michael Kennedy instructs me. “I never miss Countdown.” In fact we have to be finished by five past, because he always watches it with a cup of tea and needs to make himself one. The clock really is ticking.

Kennedy, a 73-year-old retired engineer who lives in Hunstanton on the north Norfolk coast, has suddenly become a celebrity. “I’ll be on the ITV news tonight,” he tells me. “And the Daily Mail are sending someone to meet me tomorrow.” The reason for this new-found fame? Kennedy is the latest sighting of a much-loved species – the Great British Eccentric. Countdown is not his only obsession. For 14 years he has spent two hours every day (except Saturdays) collecting rocks on Hunstanton beach to construct sea walls as a defence against the erosion that is rampant along this stretch of coast. “I’m like King Canute,” he says with a laugh. (more…)

Plans for a “DIY” pot of cash to help tackle coastal erosion problems around Norfolk are being promoted by two local MPs.

Under the scheme local people would pay a small sum – such as £5 a year – from their council tax which would be ring-fenced for coastal schemes ranging from emergency defences to projects to help erosion hit communities adapt to the changes affecting them.

It was first mooted last year by North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb when he put it to environment minister Richard Benyon during his visit to the area to see the impact of erosion and the measures trying to mitigate it, and which saw him show an interest in plan.

Now Mr Lamb and Great Yarmouth MP Brandon Lewis have met with decentralisation minister Greg Clark, who has also given his backing to the idea. (more…)

People living in homes along Norfolk’s coast under threat of destruction have been offered compensation.

It follows talks between North Norfolk District Council and owners of the homes in Beach Road, Happisburgh.

The money will come from the Pathfinder scheme, to help communities and compensate households. (more…)

Householders whose doomed homes are perched on the edge of Happisburgh’s crumbling cliff have finally struck sales deals and can start new lives elsewhere – ending more than a decade of uncertainty.

Demolition could begin in May on most of the at-risk homes along Beach Road and North Norfolk District Council (NNDC) chiefs say that by the summer Happisburgh will have a new look and facilities to welcome visitors.

Leading campaigner Malcolm Kerby said the agreements, revealed in an NNDC report today, represented a fresh beginning for Happisburgh which would have “knock-on benefits all round.” (more…)