Adapting to Coastal Change represents a staging post in the evolution of a policy framework on adapting to coastal change.  CLG’s new Planning Policy Statement 25 Supplement: Development and Coastal Change that was published on 9th March, and the work of the 15 coastal change pathfinders that were announced on 1st December last year, are both key parts of this evolving picture.  Lessons learned by the pathfinders will help inform future developments of this framework in the form of further guidance and/or policy.  Further details about the pathfinders are available on the DEFRA website via http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/flooding/manage/pathfinder/index.htm.

Adapting to climate change needs to become as much of a priority as cutting emissions, MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee argue in a report out today.  Climate projections show that Britain can expect wetter winters, drier summers and a higher likelihood of flash-floods, heat waves and droughts.  The report concludes that Government must do more to raise awareness of the need to prepare for a changing climate.

Tim Yeo, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee said:

“For a long time the climate change debate has focused on reducing carbon emissions, but adapting to the inevitable impacts of rising global temperatures is equally critical.

“Even if all the world’s power stations were switched off tomorrow past emissions mean that some climate change will still take place and we will face more floods, droughts and heat waves.

“We must act now to protect people, property and prosperity and safeguard the natural environment. Delay will only impose greater costs on future generations.

“The Government must be imaginative and establish new and sustainable sources of funding and support for adaptation.”

Adapting infrastructure and homes will be expensive.  More intense rainfall will make flash flooding more likely and the risk of coastal erosion will increase as climate change causes sea levels to rise. To maintain current levels of flood protection for homes, real terms spending on flood defences will need to increase from its current level of around £6oo million per annum to around £1 billion in 2035. Estimates in 2009 suggest that by the end of the century around £7 billion may be needed to improve the Thames flood barrier and tidal defences.

New homes being built now must be designed to cope with the inevitable changes in climate we will see over the next 50 – 80 years. The Government must make adaptation and mitigation more central to the planning system. New developments should only be permitted if they are suited to future climates.

Existing homes will also need to be adapted so that they are comfortable during hotter summers and better protected against the risk of flooding. The Government must help to kick start an integrated retro-fitting programme that covers adaptation, water efficiency and energy efficiency. Green infrastructure – such as water storage, greater tree cover and more open green spaces – must also be promoted.

Over the next twenty years 200 homes are likely to be made unsafe to live in due to coastal erosion and by then an additional 2,000 could be at risk. The Government must be clear on how it will help those worst affected by climate change – such as those who lose their homes from coastal erosion – as this will encourage others to address the risks they face.

The Committee is urging the Government to ensure that the country takes a coherent approach to adaptation – with all Whitehall departments addressing climate change risks and local communities helped to address the risks they face.

The Sixth report from the Environmental Audit Committee can be accessed on the parliament.uk website

North Norfolk District Council is answering the Government’s call for ‘pathfinder’ bids for a share of £11 million designated to help coastal communities adapt to coastal change.

NNDC has been at the forefront of lobbying and policy-making on coastal adaptation, through national working groups comprising national Government departments and agencies alongside local councils, and, as a result, the Government is developing a Coastal Change Policy for England — supported by the £11 million fund for innovative adaptation projects.

The Government is inviting ideas for its Coastal Change Policy until 11 September. The consultation is looking for ways that communities can be supported in the face of an eroding coast, if sea defences cannot be justified. This might include taking a different approach to development control, giving councils the power to buy at-risk properties and lease them back to residents, giving people practical help if they lose their homes, and maintaining infrastructure that is vital for businesses and householders.

The Coastal Change Policy consultation documents can be found on the government’s website: www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/coastal-change/

NNDC is applying to be a ‘pathfinder’ council, building on its experience of coastal management and working closely with communities to plan for coastal change.

Pathfinder projects are expected to develop imaginative local solutions to issues such as loss of investment, loss of confidence, blight and environmental degradation which affect many of our coastal settlements to varying degrees. The Council will also continue to campaign for long-term solutions by responding to the consultation and demonstrating innovative schemes that can be repeated elsewhere.

Councillor Clive Stockton is NNDC’s Cabinet Member for Coastal Strategy, and also sits on the National Local Government Association’s Coastal Special Interest Group. He said: “This initiative represents a step change in Government policy towards coastal management, recognising for the first time the plight of coastal communities and their need for support in confronting the changes which they face.”

Councillor Stockton urged people to respond to the Government’s consultation paper, saying: “What happens to our coast, and to the communities on it, affects the livelihood of the whole District. We are working closely with the Coastal Concern Action Group in developing our projects and we are anxious to ensure that we have the support of coastal communities, and that our projects respond appropriately to local needs. We are also keen to find partners in delivering the projects should we be successful in getting funding.”

The Council’s response to the Coastal Change Policy consultation and its pathfinder bid will be considered by NNDC’s Cabinet on 7 September.

For more information about coastal adaptation in North Norfolk and NNDC’s pathfinder project ideas, contact Rob Young, Coastal Planner, on 01263 516162 or email coastalmanagement@north-norfolk.gov.uk

As sea levels threaten a number of historic properties, the government is considering ways to protect them.

Historic monuments that are threatened with destruction could be moved in exceptional circumstances to a “more sustainable location”, according to a consultation paper released by the Department for the Environment. Coastal defences should be improved in less severe cases and valuable assets recorded in case they are lost forever, it says.

Owners of homes which will be lost to the sea could receive grants to cover demolition and moving costs.

This week the Met Office will warn of the threat of rising sea levels to Britain over the next 80 years.

It is expected to warn that sea levels could rise by as much as 80cm (31 inches) around the British coast by 2100, causing the flooding of low lying areas such as Norfolk. Storm surge events around the coast could occur 20 times more frequently for some coastal areas making erosion damage worse.

There is precedent for historic buildings to be dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere. The 17th Century Clavell Tower, at Kimmeridge Bay, Dorset was recently moved 25 metres inland at a cost of £898,000. At St Fagans National History Museum in Cardiff buildings a school, chapel, Workmen’s Institute, farms and houses have been re-erected.

Hundreds of monuments around the British coast are at risk of sea level rises and erosion and could be candidates for relocation. St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall which is currently reached by a causeway could become an inaccessible island, Westbury Court Garden in Gloucestershire could be flooded by the River Severn and Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumbria is under threat from erosion.

An English Heritage spokesman said: “Future sea-level rise as a result of climate change and associated coastal erosion and flooding will threaten many historic buildings, sites and landscapes. While it may be possible to protect some of these, others will need to be adapted to withstand changing conditions and, over time, others will be lost.”

Defra also launched an £11 million Coastal Change Fund for local authorities to help local communities adapt to coastal erosion where it is not possible to hold the sea back with defences.

Councils could pay for houses that could be lost to the sea to be demolished and offer a further £1,000 to help people move house. Local authorities could also buy properties at risk and then lease them back to the owners to prevent coastal homes becoming neglected or abandoned as people are afraid of the long term risks.

According to Defra, some 200 homes could be lost to the sea over the next 20 years, though more are likely to be at risk over the longer term as a result of climate change.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, said coastal communities need to be prepared.

“Coastal change and erosion threatens our coastal communities – and with a changing climate, those risks will only increase.

“We will defend where we can, and we’re investing record amounts in protecting people and property.

“But the sea will inevitably shape and mould our coastline, as it has always done, and we need the views of those who will be directly affected by the changing coastline on how we can adapt.”

The consultation, which runs until September, also invites views on how to protect the natural landscape and coastal heritage.

The Environment Agency welcomed the proposals as a “step in the right direction” to help the homes and businesses threatened by coastal erosion, but said the Coastal Change Fund should have been developed further.

Story by Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent in the Telegraph

The government last night announced a raft of new ideas aimed at helping people who lose their homes to coastal erosion – but campaigners said that although the plans had merit, they still fell short of the full compensation package necessary.

Launching a three-month consultation into coastal change policy, Defra officials said they would create a new pot of £11m to help investigate how to address change. Local authorities could bid to become coastal change ‘pathfinders’ and access some of the money.

The Defra consultation will also discuss providing cash to meet certain costs of demolition and moving house for those faced with losing their homes to erosion.

But the suggested figures look to be limited to a maximum of £1,000 to cover removals and redirection of post and up to £5,000 to cover knocking down the threatened property. It would not extend to covering the value of homes, even if they had been previously defended and were now subject to damaged or removed sea defences, a key demand of coastal campaigners in recent years.

The documents make mention of the possibility of fuller compensation for people losing their homes and businesses, but this is not Defra’s ‘preferred option’.

Last night, leading coastal campaigner Malcom Kerby, coordinator of the Happisburgh-based Coastal Concern Action Group (CCAG), said the consultation was “a significant step forward and a clear acknowledgment from government of the problems which exist”.

“I agree with much of what is said in the consultation documents, in fact I am pleased that much of the information within them comes from the input we at CCAG have had with the government over the last few years,” added Mr Kerby.

“It doesn’t go far enough by any means, but at least the government has recognised there is a hole in the system that people are dropping through; they cannot deny that exists anymore. It is a step in the right direction and to some extent I take heart from it.”

North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb, who chairs an all-party parliamentary group into coastal and marine issues, said: “If you are on the front line of this and you are told all you will get is the cost of demolition – which in north Norfolk is already paid for by the local authority – plus a little money to help you move house, it is insulting.

“This falls fatally short of what should happen, which is adequate compensation for the loss of a home if it has been previously defended and is no longer defended following a change in policy.

“The document mentions compensation but fails to advocate it – and that’s deeply disappointing.

“Yes, there is a recognition of the need to address the impact of this issue on communities, but that’s not enough.”

Environment secretary Hilary Benn said: “The sea will inevitably shape and mould our coastline, as it has always done, and we need the views of those who will be directly affected by the changing coastline on how we can adapt.”

To take part in the consultation, log on to www.defra.gov.uk

Story by Ed Foss in the Eastern Daily Press

Communities being eaten away by coastal erosion in north Norfolk are set to get a helping hand in their battle against blight.

Villages are not just fighting to shore up their sea defences, but also trying to stop their crumbling cliffs sterilising local life by putting a block on progress.

Moves are afoot to relax planning guidelines to allow more flexibility for developments, extensions and changes of use inside “no go areas” likely to be lost to erosion.

The ideas, to be discussed today, aim to strike a balance between stopping people putting lives and property at risk, while keeping communities vibrant.

It could mean allowing a caravan park to retreat on to a nearby field, a struggling pub to become a house, or a temporary community building to be allowed on threatened land – but all with a time limit on them.

Planning officer Rob Young said: “We need to do something to keep communities viable and sustainable, by looking at what can be done without storing up problems for the future.”

He said that allowing some alternative uses, extensions and fixed-term commercial uses gave control over the buildings’ lifetime. And exceptions to policy could also be made to help buildings with community uses, such as a village hall, to help local life.

Cabinet member Clive Stockton, who runs a pub in the erosion-hit village of Happisburgh, said: “Without this, coastal communities will be facing having areas of land, which have been refused permission for housing, set in aspic.

“This is an attempt to show there are other possible uses, rather than just lying fallow.”

The guidelines will work alongside the main planning policies, which restrict development in the erosion areas – covering most of north Norfolk’s cliff-lined coast barring the key locations of Cromer, Sheringham and the Bacton gas terminal, where sea defences are due to be maintained.

All other areas face dealing with an emerging national policy of allowing the coast to retreat in a more natural way – but it leaves long-established communities, many of them reliant on holiday trade, having to adjust.

Mr Stockton said the guidelines could not be firmed up into policy until there was more detail on a national “adaptation” scheme aimed at helping communities adjust to the changes caused by erosion.

Story by Richard Batson in the Eastern Daily Press