15 coastal change pathfinder authorities who will explore new ways of adapting to coastal change have been announced on the Defra website. These include Scarborough Borough Council, East Riding District Council, North Norfolk District Council, Waveney District Council and Tendring District Council.
From a press release:
Support for coastal communities in adapting to coastal change was announced today when the government awarded £11 million in grants to fifteen local authorities who had come up with the best and most innovative ideas for dealing with and adapting to coastal change.
The winning local authorities come from all around the English coast, from Sefton in the North West, to East Sussex in the South East. Each has come up with their own “pathfinder” scheme to work with communities and find ways of dealing with a changing coastline. Projects range from creating new sand dunes and building boardwalks to, where properties are at risk, developing of ‘buy to let’ schemes and the purchase of land to rebuild properties at risk. (more…)
Surely we (the taxpayers) have a right to expect a constructive lead from our Government on issues as important to the well being of our island nation as coast management? What we are getting is a whole series of ‘measures’, ‘plans’, ’strategies’ and ‘policies’ emanating from the centre which are unworkable, unacceptable and seem to increasingly prove how little comprehension exists within central Government and its Quangos of how the coast and its communities function, or what is needed to maintain their functionality through global warming, climate change and sea level rise.
Read the full article by Malcolm Kerby on the Coastal Concern Action Group website.
‘A strategy for promoting an integrated approach to the management of coastal areas in England’ has been published by DEFRA. It sets out the Government’s vision for coastal management, objectives and actions to achieve the vision, and briefly explains how all the changes currently being taken forward will work together in coastal areas.
There surely can be few other areas of Government which provide poorer value for money than DEFRA’s Flood and Coast Protection (F&CP) department.
F&CP now has it’s own “Bermuda Triangle” the three sides of which are DEFRA, Environment Agency (EA) and Natural England (NE).
Dubbed Bermuda Triangle because if one lives on the coast and happens to be caught between those three (one department and two quangos) it is quite likely that one will disappear into the administrative, process led and target orientated black hole which they seem to create.
The only thing which seems to disappear faster than any individual caught in it is taxpayers money.
Read the rest of Malcom Kerby’s comments on the Coastal Concern Action Group website
On the Coastal Concern Action Group website comes a report of a busy week, with meetings of a North Norfolk contingent at the Environment Agency, a DEFRA workshop in Reading discussing adaptation measures, and finally a fact finding trip to Holland organised by CoastNet on behalf of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coastal and Marine Issues.
Read the full report >
Also on the CoastNet website >