A COUNCIL has pledged to seek more funding to help communities affected by coastal erosion amid fears it may lose the support of residents when money for an innovative aid project dries up next month.

A £1.2m scheme funded by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is due to end in March, and East Riding Council, which administers it, said it was determined to explore other sources of finance to assist some of the most exposed households in England.

All of the money in the East Riding Coastal Change Pathfinder project (ERCCP) has now been allocated to households in the Aldbrough, Cowden, Hornsea, Skipsea, Tunstall and Ulrome areas, and 35 of them have been helped adapt to the impact of “coastal change”.

The scheme has also funded the demolition of 43 dangerous structures and properties. (more…)

Bulldozers are due to move in and demolish Happisburgh’s doomed cliff-top homes this spring as the blighted seaside village prepares for a new lease of life.

Angie Fitch-Tillett, North Norfolk District Council (NNDC) cabinet member for the coast, said the council’s final purchase of nine erosion-threatened Beach Road homes had been wrapped up just before Christmas.

She added: “We are looking to get them down in the foreseeable future. In the worst case scenario it will be a couple of months.” (more…)

WALNEY residents whose homes are at risk of being washed into the sea have been snubbed by a government minister.

Barrow and Furness MP John Woodcock has now pledged to sit down with residents and town hall officials to consider the options after Richard Benyon refused his request to meet a local delegation to discuss the issue.

Mr Woodcock said: “The problem of coastal erosion at Earnse Bay is of pressing concern. (more…)

Christmas may be over and done with but what about all the left over Christmas trees?

With 8 million Christmas trees sold in the UK every year that can be quite a waste if they’re not put to good use.

Instead of throwing your tree on the rubbish heap why not use it to help the environment?

Well, Hayley decided to do just that and took hers to Formby in Merseyside to see how it can be used to prevent coastal erosion.

Story on BBC Newsround

WORKS to protect 65 homes in West Wittering from flooding in the future are going ‘full steam ahead’, the Environment Agency has said.

Residents and the community in the Witterings managed to raise an incredible £150,000 to help pay for the defence works.

The homes will be protected by raising the current embankment on the shore with clay. Preparation construction works have started but will not be implemented on the beach until April when birds stop nesting there. (more…)

RESIDENTS can view information on how the coastline of the Lewes District is set to change during the next 20 years.

The district is part of a pioneering national pilot scheme to give the public online information on how the coast is changing.

A new set of web pages will provide information on how coastal erosion is expected to change the coastline in the next two decades.

The pages will also detail how the coast is being managed by the Environment Agency and the local authorities, as well as what coastal defences are in place. (more…)

Steps leading down to the beaches around the Seven Sisters cliffs will be relocated because of coastal erosion.

Planning permission has been granted to allow Wealden District Council to build the new steps in the Birling Gap.

The Seven Sisters cliffs, from Seaford to Beachy Head, are a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and part of the South Downs National Park.

The new staircase will be built 3m (9.8ft) inland from its current position. (more…)

A £400,000 scheme to protect a vulnerable stretch of Suffolk coastline has finished ahead of schedule.

The second phase of the project at Thorpeness involved nearly 2,000 fabric bags filled with sand and shingle being used to strength the defences.

The defences at the northern end of the village are being reconstructed and strengthened after damage caused by storms in June last year. (more…)

THE PIER extensions may in future be protected by rock armour as part of a new strategy to safeguard the Whitby coast.

Stewart Rowe, Scarborough Borough Council’s principal coastal officer, gave a presentation at a full meeting of Whitby Town Council (6 Dec) about work that is taking place to create a new coastal defence strategy.

In this presentation he suggested that to completely repair all of Whitby’s sea defences, including the harbour, would cost around £80m. (more…)

Human rights will be breached if Great Yarmouth Borough Council fails to protect more than a dozen cliff-top homes and businesses from the ocean.

That is the view of Brian Hardisty whose Hopton home will be engulfed with 14 houses and two holiday companies if the Kelling to Lowestoft Ness Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) is approved.

His warning comes after plans revealed sea defences at Yarmouth and Gorleston would be maintained, while parts of Hopton would be allowed to fall into the sea. (more…)