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…)

A planned “buy to lease” scheme aimed at helping seaside homeowners and communities threatened by erosion is being dropped by a coastal council.

But officials in North Norfolk are looking at other options and a campaigner says there are better ways of boosting blighted communities.

Buy to Lease was being investigated as a way of an authority purchasing properties in danger of being lost to erosion between 2025 and 2050 – and leasing them back to the owners or someone else. (more…)

The last resident of Happisburgh’s doomed Beach Road says she has no regrets about her decision to stay until the sea finally forces her out of her cliff-top bungalow.

Bryony Nierop-Reading has only her cats, stunning sea views and nearby sand martins for company after declining to join neighbours who have sold up to North Norfolk District Council (NNDC) and moved away from the fast-eroding coastline.

Mrs Nierop-Reading, 66, says she loves living just 45ft from the cliff edge where she can enjoy the sea in all its moods – but she is “seriously worried” that NNDC has a “sub-agenda” to remove or rearrange existing sea defences, allowing wave action to erode the Beach Road coastline unchecked.

Beach clearance and demolition of the vacant homes around Mrs Nierop-Reading, is due to begin shortly as the council seeks to landscape the blighted area for public recreational use. (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…)

More funding is needed if trailblazing work protecting the coastline is to continue and be rolled out across the country was the message from a two-day conference looking at how successful projects around the coastline in North Norfolk have been.

Leading figures from the Environment Agency and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who have a say on coastal policies and flooding, are in North Norfolk this week looking at the work which has taken place as part of North Norfolk District Council’s Coastal Pathfinder projects.

The council was awarded £3m in 2009 from the government’s pathfinder programme to explore ways of helping coastal communities plan and adapt to coastal change. (more…)

Two projects crucial to the revitalisation of erosion-blighted Happisburgh will take another step nearer realisation tomorrow.

Schemes to relocate the coastal village’s Beach Road car park and to replace nine cliff-edge homes, soon to be demolished, are due to come before North Norfolk District Council’s cabinet tomorrow morning.

Councillors are being recommended to support the transfer of ownership and management of the car park, and new public toilets which will be built in it, to Happisburgh Parish Council. (more…)

Plans to clear debris from the beach at Happisburgh have been approved and assurances have been 
offered about the possible impact it may have on the already occurring erosion.

The debris consists of the remains of old coastal defences, lost cliff-top structures and the old, now eroded lifeboat ramp.

Planning officers say that where possible, concrete remains will be incorporated into the existing rock defences. (more…)

People living in homes along Norfolk’s coast under threat of destruction have been offered compensation.

It follows talks between North Norfolk District Council and owners of the homes in Beach Road, Happisburgh.

The money will come from the Pathfinder scheme, to help communities and compensate households. (more…)

Householders whose doomed homes are perched on the edge of Happisburgh’s crumbling cliff have finally struck sales deals and can start new lives elsewhere – ending more than a decade of uncertainty.

Demolition could begin in May on most of the at-risk homes along Beach Road and North Norfolk District Council (NNDC) chiefs say that by the summer Happisburgh will have a new look and facilities to welcome visitors.

Leading campaigner Malcolm Kerby said the agreements, revealed in an NNDC report today, represented a fresh beginning for Happisburgh which would have “knock-on benefits all round.” (more…)