COMMUNITIES in Dorset are being asked for their say on how the Environment Agency protects them from floods and coastal erosion over the next 100 years.

The agency says that local knowledge and experience are key to holding back Mother Nature as sea levels rise.

It is launching the Poole Bay, Poole Harbour and Wareham Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy, which follows a broader study that looked at flood risk and erosion between Hengistbury Head and Durlston Head.

Now, working with councils in Dorset, it is looking in more detail at what needs to be done. (more…)

Future investment in flood defences will require greater contributions from communities and businesses, Environment Agency Chief Executive Dr Paul Leinster will say in a speech today.

Speaking at the Defra/Environment Agency Flood and Coastal Risk Management conference in Telford, Dr Leinster will say that local contributions to the funding of flood defences will have to play a greater role in reducing the risk of flood and coastal erosion. His comments echo calls made by Sir Michael Pitt in his independent review of the summer 2007 floods.

Environment Agency spending on flood and coastal risk management is currently at record levels (£629m for 2010-11). However, other sources of funding will need to be found to protect communities from increasing risk of flooding and coastal erosion including from changes in climate in future. (more…)

A controversial plan to deliberately breach a Wells flood bank has been discarded by environmental planners in response to a host of objections from landowners and townspeople.

The Environment Agency (EA) is finalising a draft shoreline management plan (SMP) designed to help the North Norfolk coast adapt to rising sea levels during the next century.

One of the ideas put forward was a £4.2m scheme to reconstruct Wells’ eastern defences further inland, allowing land behind the existing east bank to flood. (more…)

A COASTAL community has vowed to continue its fight to have long-term sea defences installed on its shore after the Environment Agency refused to fund the project.

Bootle beach is currently categorised under the government’s Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) as “no active intervention”.

That would mean the beach and nearby Eskmeals gun range road would be allowed to wash away.

An emergency meeting was held with villagers, Copeland Borough Council, Cumbria County Council and the Environment Agency in a bid to get the government to change the policy and defend the beach. (more…)

Four Lancashire dairy farms covering 1035 acres could disappear under the sea if the Environment Agency gives the go ahead for a shoreline management plan along the coast of Morecambe Bay.

The scheme, which will affect 10 farms in total and destroy 17 properties and four large caravan parks, is part of a review of sea defences along a stretch of north-west coastline south of Lancaster. The current sea-wall embankment runs for about five miles.

One of the farms that would be lost is John and Brenda Lawson’s Bank End Farm at Cockerham, which stands virtually on the shoreline of Morecambe Bay. This highly productive dairy farm carries around 350 cows.

“It’s unbelievable that someone has come up with a plan that will mean our farms and the future of our families will disappear under the sea and none of us has received a letter or a phone call so that we could at least be represented at the [planning] meetings,” said Mrs Lawson. (more…)

Home owners who face losing their East Anglian properties to coastal erosion were offered the hope of receiving proper compensation last night.

The chairman of the Environment Agency has suggested that the government sets up a buy and lease scheme along the region’s coast.

Lord Smith said that authorities such as North Norfolk District Council should be given funding to purchase and then lease back up to 250 homes that are likely to fall into the sea in the next 20 years. (more…)

The chairman of the Environment Agency Lord Smith has unveiled a radical plan to help hundreds of homeowners threatened by coastal erosion.

The coastlines of Norfolk, Suffolk and Lincolnshire have been particularly vulnerable to the sea with many losing their homes without compensation.

Lord Smith has told BBC Look East local councils should buy up homes threatened by the sea and then lease them back. (more…)

Hundreds of homes on cliffs around Britain should be bought by the Government because climate change is accelerating the pace of coastal erosion, according to the head of the Environment Agency.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Smith of Finsbury said that some parts of the coastline were now impossible to defend and it was unfair that people should lose their homes through no fault of their own.

Local authorities should be given the funding to buy vulnerable houses at a rate based on their original value rather than the market value, he said. They would then lease them back to the owners until the property became uninhabitable. (more…)

The Environment Agency has posted its response to Defra’s Consultation on Coastal Change Policy on it’s website:

We welcome the Coastal Change consultation and believe that for decisions to be made about a sustainable future for the coast there must be meaningful practical support for those affected by coastal change.
We:

• support the proposals for a coastal erosion assistance package for individuals and the use of the coastal change fund for community adaptation pathfinders
• see this as a positive initiative which needs to give local authorities sufficient flexibility to apply within their communities
• would like a clear policy and financial framework beyond 2011 that includes better levels of support to individuals at the ‘front line’ of coastal change
• welcome the Community Adaptation Planning and Engagement guidance, and have already adopted its principles in joint Environment Agency / local authority engagement work on Shoreline Management Plans and erosion maps.

Read the full response on the Environment Agency website