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.”

The news has come as a huge relief to defiant Bryony Nierop-Reading, the sole remaining permanent resident, who refused to sell her bungalow.

She has been frustrated at the delay in demolishing her former neighbours’ homes and angry at having to call the police because of intruders in the empty properties.

Mrs Nierop-Reading, 66, claimed NNDC had failed to make them secure until contacted by the News last week.

Mrs Fitch-Tillett said time was still needed to complete legally-required asbestos and bat surveys on the properties and NNDC also had to wait until a Happisburgh landowner, who has not been identified, had submitted an application for nine replacement homes on a plot in the village.

Police confirmed that they had been alerted to two recent attempted burglaries in Beach Road.

One night last week Mrs Nierop-Reading was returning home when she heard someone tread on glass in the empty property beside hers. She headed back to the village to ring the police and said she saw someone leave the building and drive away.

“It isn’t at all pleasant. They need to get on with this demolition. They are empty, deteriorating and a security risk. It’s a bit like putting a sick animal to sleep – no-one wants to do it but you know it’s for the best,” she said.

“It will make it a bit colder up here for me, and less private, but it’s got to be done – it’s the worst of all possible worlds at the minute.”

A Midlands family have also refused to sell their two Beach Road holiday homes and the three remaining properties will leave a gap-toothed cliff-top line after demolition.

Campaigner Malcolm Kerby, of the Coastal Concern Action Group, said those who had decided to sell had received 40 to 50 per cent of their properties’ ‘no-problem’ market value out of NNDC’s £3m pot from the government’s pioneering Pathfinder scheme aimed at helping communities cope with erosion blight.

Although he believed central government should fully compensate householders for their loss, NNDC had “screwed as much out of the deal as possible for people,” based on current government policy which Mr Kerby said could be summarised as: “It’s your own fault for moving to the coast.”

He added: “What we’ve got is as good as it gets. I am very pleased with the outcome of the Pathfinder. I think when it’s complete later this year it will reset Happisburgh for the next quarter of a century in a very good way.”

Work on new Beach Road public toilets is due to begin “imminently” according to NNDC. The block will stand in a newly-built car park which replaces one nearer the cliff edge. The new facilities will be fully open at Easter and a picnic area will be ready soon afterwards.

Story by Alex Hurrell in the Eastern Daily Press

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!

There is nothing within it to address the shortcomings of past policy. For me the most glaring example is the continued combining of fluvial and coastal policy and approach. Clearly the drivers and solutions are entirely different for fluvial (rivers) and the coast (sea), this combined approach can surely only disadvantage both areas. It may make ‘political sense’ on paper but to both myself and others, including some highly respected coastal managers, it is a major stumbling block to achieving good coast management. I can however understand why it appears attractive to Government. I’m sure they would claim it reduces their operating cost. Problem is it conveniently obscures the paucity of funding for the coast when budgets are announced and produces policies which are centred on fluvial thinking much of which simply does not apply on the coast.

Also there is still no mechanism (policy or funding) for adaptation on the coast in the face of projected rising sea levels and climate change. Both changes appear inevitable and beyond the control of man which makes it fundamentally important that we have adequate, effective policies in place to successfully manage our way through said changes. In a word Adaptation.

Secondly we still have a situation where when losses are incurred to people and communities resulting from policy change on a hitherto defended section of coast usually from Hold the Line to either No Active Intervention or Managed Realignment there is still no policy or funding to deal with the consequences of that change. Yet for flora and fauna in the same situation there is a policy of 100% compensation irrespective of cost. Quite simply that can not be either right or socially just.

On another aspect of policy, or rather the lack of it, it seems that we the people are denied the right to a properly constructed appeal procedure against decisions made by the Government created quango Natural England (NE) who are charged with ‘policing’ the environment. Problem is Government and the politicians would have us believe NE are just advisors, a view which NE itself strongly supports and propagates. In practice however it seems no Government Department or politician will challenge or go against NE ‘advice’. So it would appear that policy is being set by default with a singular lack of checks and balances. We need more than just relying on the goodwill of any individual within it or NE itself.

Over the past year we have seen a plethora of public consultations from Government Departments and quangos on proposed new policies, indeed at one stage it was difficult to keep up with them. Those proposed policies have since been ratified and are now in place. The question and comment I constantly hear from communities and individuals (including those who have to manage the coast) is are these consultations meaningful or are they simply a ‘box ticking’ exercise to comply with convention rules as precious little attention seems to be paid to constructive comment made in the
consultation responses.

Perhaps at some stage in the future we will get a politician or politicians who will not just read the script handed to them by senior aides and have enough knowledge, understanding and balls to get involved in the creation of Flood and Coast Management policy which will actually work for the coast and it’s people within a fair and socially just framework.

With 16.9 million people living in the coastal zone in this country (Atkins 2004: ICZM in the UK – a stocktake) we deserve better, much better than that which is currently being foisted upon us.

I do realise that these comments may cause some consternation amongst some of the politicians and civil servants within DEFRA, EA and NE with whom I have had the very real pleasure of working over recent years. However I hope they know me well enough to know that my abiding principle has not changed and that is to ‘work with in search of better whilst telling it like it is’.

Malcolm Kerby
Coastal Concern Action Group
November 2011

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.”

Mrs Nierop-Reading lived three miles (4.8km) inland in Witton until she moved to her “cultural hub” of Happisburgh in 2008, despite the dangers of living so close to the sea.

“Occasionally it makes one panic stricken,” she said. “But most of the time I feel extremely safe here.

“Every morning I go to the French windows and open them and listen to the sea. The view is incredible.”

Compensation deal

Her last neighbours – the Gilbert family from Nottinghamshire – said farewell to their holiday home during Easter 2011 after accepting a compensation deal offered to them by North Norfolk District Council’s Coastal Pathfinder project.

Ten out of 13 homeowners on Beach Road accepted a share of £726,000 compensation this month out of a pot of £3m earmarked to help the cliff-top residents.

David and Jill Gilbert were sad to see their property, which they purchased in 1976, slowly lose its battle with the sea.

“We’ve had honeymoons down here, weddings, 80th birthday parties, 21st parties and big family get-togethers,” said Mrs Gilbert.

Mr Gilbert added: “It’s been really sad. About eight years ago [the cliff] went very quickly and we thought ‘that’s it’, but we’ve hung on over the last few years.”

Other owners on the road to move out this year include Diana Wrightson, who with her business partner Jill Morris ran a guest house and tea garden for 26 years at Cliff House.

She accepted compensation worth 40% of what her house would have been worth if it was not at risk from coastal erosion.

“It’s very sad to see it happen and what makes it more sad is that it was absolutely unnecessary to allow it to get to this stage,” said Happisburgh resident Malcolm Kerby from the Coastal Concern Action Group (CCAG), which was set up to help the community fight against the onset of the sea.

Beloved home

Mrs Nierop-Reading knows that one day she will also have to move from her beloved home and feels sympathy for the Gilberts, who became the last family on Beach Road to abandon their house.

“I must say if I’d have been perched where they are I think I would have done the same thing – they don’t have much alternative,” said the grandmother of six.

“For all the people who’d been here for a long, long time… they moved here when the council had promised to keep the sea defences up and they have ended up taking Pathfinder money, but they’ve also got a sense of betrayal.

“I came here knowing it would go eventually and so I’m in a very different position to them. Thankfully I wasn’t offered enough money to tempt me.”

There are currently no funds set aside to maintain or improve the aging sea defences at Happisburgh, but a scheme is in place to move the cliff-top car park and possibly build a new shop and toilet block in the village.

“The NN Pathfinder has been applauded by local people as well as government officials and we are pleased that we have been able to undertake a number of successful projects,” said Peter Battrick from North Norfolk District Council.

“But there is a specific amount of money for a specific set of projects,” he added.

The council is set to demolish the vacant Beach Road properties in the summer.

Story on the BBC News website

Listen to the Gilbert family talking to BBC Radio Norfolk

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.

One of those is Di Wrightson and her business partner, Jill Morris, whose home, Cliff House, is metres from the cliff edge.

The two, who ran a guest house and tea garden for 26 years until forced to close five years ago because their home’s position made investment in improvements uneconomic, are currently in the process of moving into their new home in Northrepps.

They are also helping out at a new tea shop The Blue Willow Tea Rooms in Hamilton Road, Cromer, which opened on Monday, April 18 and is owned by Ms Morris’s son James, 43, and his wife, Max, 45.

It is a turn around as James often used to help out when he was a teenager at the Cliff House tea rooms.

Ms Wrightson said: “The hope was always that when we retired James would take over the business in Happisburgh but that was not meant to be. So he has bought the café here and we are helping out.

“It has been a very stressful time, especially with helping at the café as well, it has all come together at the same time, trying to move out of our Happisburgh home and into our new one.”

But she said although there was sadness at leaving Happisburgh, the move and work at the new café was keeping them motivated.

She said: “It has given us a bit of hope, it is something to look forward to. This is a real opportunity with a lot of possibilities for us. We also love what we do, meeting people and the different customers.”

She would not reveal exactly how much they had been offered for their home, but said it was around 45pc of what it would have been if the house was not in a ‘problem’ area.

She also said she aims to keep up contact with Happisburgh, retaining her role as chairman of the Friends of Happisburgh Lighthouse and said she would also be paying frequent visits to the village.

Speaking about the pathfinder project she said it had “not done enough”. She pointed to the Happisburgh based Coastal Concern Action Group’s campaign for 100pc compensation, and said although they were happy to have been awarded something, there should have been full compensation for the homeowners.

Jane Archer and Chris Cutting’s Happisburgh Beach Road bungalow was infamously valued at just £1 in 2008 when they tried to use it as collateral for a loan. Mr Cutting said they expect to move out in the summer, after 23 years spent raising three children in their home.

In total 13 home owners on Beach Road were made offers, 10 have now accepted the offers, with two owners declining offers. A spokesman for North Norfolk District Council said there are now no more offers or negotiations outstanding. The conclusion of the deal means the council is handing over just over £726,000 to help the at-risk householders from the £3m pot of national pathfinder cash.

A spokesman from North Norfolk District Council said following demolition and clearance of the homes, which is expected to happen in the summer, the land will be incorporated into a landscaping scheme for the area which will complement a new car park. The scheme will be developed in consultation with the Happisburgh Local Liaison Group and Happisburgh Parish Council and will be paid for from pathfinder funds.

Malcolm Kerby, a leading campaigner with the Coastal Concern Action Group, said: “The pathfinder project has been a stepping stone, but it is by no means the end, it is only part of a process of delivering a much better system of managing our coastline.”

Story by Tracey Gray in the Eastern Daily Press

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.”

For more than a decade Mr Kerby has led the Coastal Concern Action Group’s (CCAG) high-profile struggle to make government accept responsibility for the impact of its sea-defence policies on communities like Happisburgh.

And last month – after 12 years, thousands of hours work, ministerial visits, trips to Westminster, Brussels and The Hague, meetings, TV appearances, conferences and a lot of straight talking – that campaign began to reap dividends.

Nearly all of those whose homes are most at risk have clinched sales deals with North Norfolk District Council expected to pay out 40 to 50pc of the properties’ ‘not at risk’ values.

The agreements use government’s pioneering Pathfinder cash, given to help communities cope with the effects of erosion after much lobbying from organisations including the CCAG.

Hopes are high that, once those Beach Road homes have been demolished, it will be many years before any more slip over the eroding cliff and that Happisburgh will become a popular tourist spot once more.

“We’re halfway there and it’s hugely important,” said Mr Kerby.

For campaigners, who have seen government shift from a ‘hold the line’ to a ‘no active intervention’ sea-defence policy, causing property prices to plummet, the fight will not be truly over until those affected receive 100pc of their homes’ ‘no-problems’ value – ‘you changed the policy, you pay the price’, runs the argument.

Mr Kerby was blissfully ignorant of all that when he parked his bicycle outside Happisburgh’s Church Room one night in 1999 and tried to join his new neighbours inside at a public meeting.

Just six weeks earlier he and his partner had moved to Happisburgh, anticipating a semi-retirement with time to enjoy their beloved rescue horses, mess about in a boat, and for Mr Kerby to ride his 750cc Honda Africa Twin motorcycle. But there were far too many to squeeze into the room so they were streaming out and heading for Happisburgh Church.

Some 300 anxious people had turned up to discuss how they could protect their homes against rapid coastline erosion.

Mr Kerby spoke at the meeting, acknowledging people’s passion and energy but calling for it to be organised.

From that meeting the CCAG evolved, Mr Kerby became its co-ordinator and embarked on “a massive learning curve.”

What did he know of the problem at the time? “That the North Sea was cold and I didn’t want to swim in it, and that sand got in the elastic of your trunks and your sandwiches.”

Born in wartime London, he left school at 14 and claims never to have passed an exam in his life.

Today he can speak with authority on a highly-complex subject, has lunched with lords and baronesses, been chauffeur-driven around European capitals and is an external member of the all-party parliamentary group on coastal and marine issues.

CCAG has become an internationally-respected organisation and its website is used as a key resource by academics.

He went on to form and chair the National Voice of Coastal Communities, a CCAG off-shoot aimed at uniting all the country’s threatened areas, and is now regularly contacted by desperately-worried people from Barrow-in-Furness to Selsey.

Academic qualifications aside, Mr Kerby came to his CCAG role with a lifetime’s experience as a businessman. He was UK sales manager for Lotus before starting a company with his son-in-law, selling industrial insulation, and even found time to chair Wicklewood Parish Council.

Those university-of-life skills have been critical in helping him undo years of mutual distrust, if not outright hostility, and forge respectful relationships between campaigners and all layers of government – although he still has little time for “London windbags.”

Mr Kerby is convinced that the campaign for full social justice and a progression from Pathfinder should continue, but says he hates getting up at 4.30am to catch London trains, being away from his partner, and had long promised himself that he would bow out when he reached “the old three-score-and-10”

So, with such strong reasons to quit, why the wobble? He struggles with his thoughts before admitting: “Because I have enjoyed it.”

“I don’t think we’ve have got anywhere without him”

Malcolm Kerby’s contribution to gaining justice for erosionthreatened coastal communities has been highly significant, according to two men who have worked closely with him over the years.

North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb, praised Mr Kerby for his pragmatic, bridge-building approach to working with the authorities, and the way in which he had steadfastly and clearly represented his community’s interests.

And Peter Frew, head of coastal strategy with North Norfolk District Council, applauded the speed with which he had grasped the subject and realised that it was actually a national argument. Mr Kerby referred to local politicians, council officials and the Happisburgh campaigners as “Team North Norfolk,” said Mr Frew.

And both men said this united approach had been vital in giving the cause credibility and persuading government to acknowledge that something needed to be done.

“I don’t think we would have got anywhere without him,” said Mr Frew. “He is prepared to ring up a minister and say ‘I am not happy’ – and they listen. Those doors aren’t open to us as public servants.”

If Mr Kerby did drop out, it was critical that the fight continued, both agreed. “Pathfinder was a one-off sum of money,” said Mr Lamb. “It enabled people on the Happisburgh frontline to sell their homes to the local authority. Now we have got to secure justice for all people in that situation.”

Story by Alex Hurrell in the Eastern Daily Press

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.

Eleven houses and bungalows on Beach Road at erosion hot spot Happisburgh will be knocked down once their owners have been compensated through the Pathfinder scheme, which saw North Norfolk given £3m to deal with the effects of coastline management changes including the abandonment of long-standing sea defences.

But a programme of measures, including setting the ground rules for setting compensation levels, has been deferred by North Norfolk District Council.

Cabinet member Clive Stockton said: “basically there are concerns the council is not offering enough for the properties in Beach Road.”

Officials had done their best to up potential values, by allowing affected residents the chance get planning permission for replacement homes in otherwise barred locations, and additional weighting based on the kind of compensation given if homes were lost to motorway or airport projects.

“Everybody in the council would love to pay as much as we possibly can, and we are – within the constraints upon us,” he added.

Mr Stockton hoped a meeting with locals on Friday had explained their problems and that the package could be agreed by council in October or November with a view to getting competition sorted and homes demolished over the winter.

But local Coastal Concern Action Group campaigner Malcolm Kerby urged the council to look again at the deal because “it is about more than just a few houses at Happisburgh.

“We must get it right, and the best possible outcome for the sake of the futures of places like Trimingham, Mundseley and Overstrand locally and others nationally who will be in the same situation.”

Mr Kerby said it was right the council was being cautious over the way it spent public money, but he would be exploring at high level whether there was more scope for flexibility over some of the perceived constraints.

Beach Road resident Jane Archer, whose bungalow bought for £20,000 in 1987 was more recently valued at £1, said they had not yet had figures put on the table, but the formula was unlikely to provide enough for her to relocate in the village.

It might provide about £45,000 for a home she felt was worth about £160,000 in any other location, which was not enough to rebuild.

“We would take the offer and rent, which would cost us £8,000 a year, but it is difficult to find places around here because of holiday lets – or try to stay here as long as we can, and we could have another 10 years because we are not as close to he edge as some other homes.”

Ms Archer said: ”You get used to living but the council keeps dangling carrots and get your hopes up – and this will not help us move on.”

Story by Richard Batson in the Eastern Daily Press

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.

Aided by millions of pounds of government cash local councils are coming up with measures to help – including compensation packages, and oiling the wheels for people to relocate homes, businesses and village halls in their perilous parishes.

Mr Benyon saw the situation and heard from officials and campaigners at Happisburgh, and the Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft areas where he also discussed fishing issues.

But erosion was the main agenda and Mr Benyon made it but was quite clear that there was not a huge pot of cash to bale out problem-hit areas.

In North Norfolk he said the coastline had “the most serious erosion problems in Europe.

“Everybody knows there is a serious problem and it is exacerbated by climate change

“No one is going to ignore it, and there is no change in the determination to deal with it.

“Flooding and coastal erosion are real priorities for the government. Other areas will be cut back severely but these will be a continuing priority.”

The government spends about £720m on tackling river and coastal flooding, about a third of it on the coast, but needed to be “smarter” with its money.

A large slice of an £11m national Pathfinder pot – aimed at setting up local initiatives – has gone to East Anglia, with North Norfolk getting £3m, Waveney £1.5m and Yarmouth £300,000.

Mr Benyon was impressed with some of the schemes in North Norfolk, which include seeking to buy threatened homes – some to demolish , some to lease back for some of their remaining lifetime in a bid to beat off blighted property prices.

“The government does not have a bottomless pot of money, so we are looking for innovative local solutions,” he added.

On Monday North Norfolk District Council’s cabinet will discuss a package of Pathfinder measures including buying 10 properties most in danger on Beach Road at Happisburgh for demolition, a look at buying and leasing others nearby in the 20-100 year line, and provide help to move the Manor Farm caravan park away from its clifftop location. It is also helping to relocate a village hall at Trimingham.

Local MP Norman Lamb who met the minister at the start of his tour has also suggested launching a “local solidarity fund” which could see locals put £5 a year into a pot to manage the coastline – either for defences or compensation schemes.

It would need to be backed by a local referendum and he hoped people right across the district, at inland towns too, would support the idea as it would be protecting not just coastal communities but local heritage.

He accepted it was “always a battle” to get government funding, so initiatives needed to be a combination of local and government initiatives. The local fund would enable North Norfolk to have more of a say in its destiny.

Mr Benyon said he would need to check there was “legal impediment” to the idea, but said the government encouraged “localism.”

He added that the coastline around Norfolk and Suffolk was also part of the region’s heritage and helped protect the Broads, which provided tourism income to the area.

Local coastal campaigner Malcolm Kerby from the Coastal Concern Action Group said progress had been made over the years with compensation, which was once ruled out, now on the table – though not at the 100pc levels that would be ideal.

The ministerial visit was a chance to build a rapport with the new man in charge and a chance to persuade him that erosion – and the withdrawal of sea defences under latest policies – was a “national problem that needs national solution.”

Story by Richard Batson in the North Norfolk News

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.

The SMP which dates back to 2004, provides a large-scale assessment of coastal evolution and presents a policy framework which determines how the shoreline will be managed, for instance which sections of the coast are to be protected.

The revised draft includes three conditions, the first being that a proper technical analysis of the coastline should be carried out looking at what the consequences are of defending one place but not another.

The second condition is for an economic analysis looking at what will be lost and the final condition, that if an area is not to be defended then the social justice and compensation issue be addressed.

Malcolm Kerby from the Coastal Concern Action Group, who organised the meeting, acknowledged the work the councillors had done with the revised plan, but said the feeling was that it did not go far enough.

He said: “We had more than 100 people at the meeting and with a straw poll I took everyone wanted to reject the revised SMP, unless there is a social justice element not just as a condition, but actually built into or made to run concurrent with it.”

District councillor Clive Stockton, portfolio holder for planning policy, coastal strategy and economic development, said however that he believed both the council and the villagers were “singing from the same hymn sheet” with the revised plan.

He also pointed to the pathfinder programme whereby the council has been given £3m as part of the government’s national programme designed to find new ways to help communities adapt to a changing coastline, as starting to go some way to addressing the social justice issue.

The revised SMP plan is due to come back before members of North Norfolk District Council later in the year for acceptance now it has been altered.

Story by Tracey Gray in the Eastern Daily Press

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.

As another set of meetings looms to see if the tinkered SMP can finally get the nod from the relevant maritime local authorities so it can become a ‘set in stone’ document nearly six years on, views about whether enough has been done have begun to emerge. And there are clearly differences of opinion.

In parallel to this debate is the progress of the Pathfinder project, which in December saw three local authorities – North Norfolk (£3m), Waveney (£1.5m) and Great Yarmouth (£296,500) – win bids totalling nearly £5m out of a national pot of £11m to address coastal challenges.

The headline part of Pathfinder was the prospect of buying and demolishing some of the most at-risk homes on Beach Road in Happisburgh, allowing homeowners to escape with more than nothing following the slow but certain loss of what for many is the main lifetime purchase.

There are emerging differences of opinion about how successful the Pathfinder will end up being, but they do not seem as potentially divisive as those over the SMP.

The main point at this stage is to redraw the battle lines over the SMP and gear up for a further fight,according to Malcolm Kerby, the Happisburgh-based co-ordinator of the Coastal Concern Action Group (CCAG) and chairman of the National Voice of Coastal Communities (NVCC).

Along the frontage involved – from north Suffolk to somewhere near the middle of the north Norfolk coast – people have been beginning to rebuild their opposition to the plan, and need to carry on doing so, according to Mr Kerby.

A consultation into one aspect of the SMP, the strategic environmental assessment, will finish on July 2. Although it is technically only about that aspect, it has been taken to be a chance to ask about and ponder the wider plan ahead of local authorities being asked to vote on it.

“When the SMP comes up for acceptance again in this area, if there is still no social justice built into it, which at the moment I believe there is not, I shall do all I can to fight to stop it being accepted, and I would encourage others to do so,” said Mr Kerby.

“More than five years ago we went through massive pain and turmoil here over the SMP and we have to give huge credit to the elected members at North Norfolk District Council for standing their ground and refusing to accept it.

“The stand we took all those years ago has moved the whole situation on by a significant amount, but in some ways we are just back to square one.

“Social justice is at least actively under consideration by the authorities and there is recognition that something will have to be done to address the consequences of the SMPs on coastal communities, but there is nothing yet locked in place within the SMP itself.”

To accept the SMP under those circumstances would be a “giant leap of faith in the dark,” said Mr Kerby, as he encouraged district councillors to take another stand and for people to lobby their councillors with the same intention.

For Peter Frew, head of coastal strategy at North Norfolk District Council, the response from around 100 people at a recent set of SMP consultation meetings in Sea Palling, Great Yarmouth, Corton and Mundesley was of a different nature to Mr Kerby’s stance.

“The people who came to see me wanted to know if their concerns about changing policies had been put into the SMP and they went away satisfied.

“By and large we have been able to allay people’s fears.”

It was the subsequent and separate work, such as Pathfinder, which would address the issues around social justice, said Mr Frew. The SMP would potentially come before the district council’s cabinet in November, added Mr Frew.

Pathfinder project

Although widely accepted as being born out of the original SMP crisis, the Pathfinder project is a separate strand of activity, a short-term attempt to solve some localised problems while, arguably more importantly, trying to identify longerterm solutions to generic problems.

Pathfinder has a wide mandate, including working out how to help businesses relocate in the face of erosion, assessing the viability of buying and demolishing privatelyowned property and trying to formulate policy for moving community buildings so they survive for longer.

Concerns have been raised that the project (it’s not a pilot, apparently – Defra doesn’t like it being called that) has not moved forward quickly enough since the cash handouts were confirmed in December, with people living in the relevant Happisburgh houses only receiving small levels of contact to date ahead of a technical deadline of the end of this current financial year – next April.

But others feel it is progressing as quickly as it can, considering it involves a new approach to a longrunning set of challenges, and argue that the real deadline is not the end of the financial year.

A company called Bruton Knowles has been appointed as an independent property adviser to hold meetings with residents, assess values and work out suitable financial offers.

What is almost certain is that there is not enough money in the pot – the property acquisition for demolition project has been allocated £550,000 – to do what most people wanted and buy a small number of homes for somewhere near standard market value if they were in a no-risk location.

On the other hand, others suggest that some money is better than nothing, which looked likely not so many months ago.

Story by Ed Foss in the Eastern Daily Press