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…)

I have for some considerable time refrained from making comment or updates as there has been considerable activity ‘behind the scenes’ and I was conscious that any comment could have affected some of the negotiations and events which were taking place. However I believe the time is now right to comment on a number of relevant issues.

Firstly and perhaps most importantly (in the wider context) is the all new Central Government policy for Flood and Coastal Risk Management which came into being in July of this year. This is a policy which seeks to convince us, and no doubt the Association of British Insurers ( ABI ) that more will be done on the coast when in fact Government is looking to do much less with an ongoing reducing budget. The only positive I can find in the new policy is the fact that it removes any doubt that we manage our coast for fiscal reasons rather than sound coast management rationale. My own view is that the new policy is hugely divisive, has increased costs for the Maritime Authorities when seeking to provide a scheme which is subject to central funding grant in aid and could be damaging in the long term.

The conundrum for Government which this policy seeks to resolve is, how do we do less on the coast whilst convincing the public we are doing more! (more…)

The final resident living on the crumbling seafront of a Norfolk village has said she will remain defiant despite her last set of neighbours moving out.

Bryony Nierop-Reading, whose house perches just metres from the cliff edge on Beach Road, Happisburgh, said she would stay until given no other option.

The 65-year-old turned down compensation to move inland last year.

“It’s more powerful to argue for something if you are on the spot,” said Mrs Nierop-Reading.

“Also it’s nearly everybody’s dream to live by the sea.” (more…)

Homeowners in Happisburgh whose houses are perched on the cliff-top and at risk of falling into the sea because of coastal erosion have started the process of moving out and moving on.

In Happisburgh work has been taking place as part of North Norfolk District Council’s Coastal Pathfinder project with the striking of deal to compensate those whose homes are perched on the edge of Happisburgh’s crumbling cliff in Beach Road.

The council was awarded £3m in 2009 from the government’s pathfinder programme, which ends this autumn, to explore ways of helping coastal communities plan and adapt to coastal change.

And now the homeowners who have accepted deals, are starting to move out from the village. (more…)

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…)

Residents of a row of doomed clifftop homes in north Norfolk are still waiting to get firm compensation offers for their erosion-threatened properties.

A package of help through a government-backed scheme has been deferred over concerns the likely compensation figures of 40-50pc of the theoretical value will not offer enough to the affected people.

But while the local council says it is doing what it can within strict constraints, campaigners are calling for the deal to be the best possible – because it sets a precedent for other coastal communities in Norfolk and across the nation. (more…)

Environment minister Richard Benyon took a fact finding tour of Norfolk and Suffolk’s erosion-scoured coastline to hear about the problems it causes for resident and communities.

Ministers come and go at erosion hot spots with the same certainty as the tides which eat away at the crumbling cliffs.

The latest Whitehall “suit” to visit the shoreline came to find out more about how communities are coping with current coastal management strategies which see many established defences being abandoned, leaving villages in fear and blighted by plunging property prices. (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…)

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

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…)