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.

Last night Lord Smith’s high profile comments were described as the biggest step forward in the long running campaign to see homeowners properly compensated for losing their homes.

The government’s Coastal Change Policy has suggested that homeowners should receive up to £6,000 if they lose their homes because sea defences are given up.

But under Lord Smith’s new suggestion councils would buy properties at their original value and then lease them back to the owners until they become uninhabitable.

He says the move is necessary as the Environment Agency will not be able to defend large stretches of the coast from the growing threat of global climate change.

The coastal village of Happisburgh, near Cromer, has been at the forefront of trying to secure social justice for people who are unable to sell their homes because of the blight of coastal erosion and surrender of sea defences.

Malcolm Kerby of the Happisburgh-based Coastal Concern Action Group said Lord Smith’s comments were momentous.

He said: “This is the biggest step forward that I have seen in my ten year’s of campaigning. I am absolutely delighted that Lord Smith is talking about this.

“This clearly has the stamp of social justice on it and is very welcome indeed.

“But it is not time to dance on the streets yet – it is only a suggestion. We have to make sure that we all keep the pressure up to ensure it becomes policy.”

Lord Smith of Haringey, the former Labour culture secretary, told the Times on Saturday that up to 250 homes are likely to fall into the sea in Norfolk, Suffolk and Lincolnshire in the next 20 years due to a speed up in climate change.

Another 2,000 properties are at risk across the country – mostly in the East – because it is impractical to defend them.

The Environment Agency estimates that it would cost the government £400m to purchase all the homes.

Lord Smith was quoted as saying: “I would very much like to see the government develop a sale and lease back scheme.

“You are talking about the permanent loss of someone’s property through no fault of their own, sometimes the property has been in a family for several years.

“We estimate there are 200 to 250 properties. The local authority would purchase property from the current owner then lease it back to them.

“Then if it gets to a stage where they can’t live in it anymore because of the erosion they would have the funds to move somewhere else.”

Norman Lamb, the MP for North Norfolk, has championed the fight for proper compensation for people of Happisburgh and other threatened coastal communities.

He said: “Lord Smith is the highest profile person to talk about lease back. I think that is highly significant.

“I regard him as good ally on this. Collectively we have got to push on and keep it on the public agenda.”

In March Defra minister Huw Irranca Davies told a cross party group of MPs that the government should give financial assistance to homeowners who lose their properties.

The pledge came after coastal campaigners launched a vociferous fight against a 2005 shoreline management plan which recommended that long standing sea defences at popular holiday villages such as Mundesley and Overstrand be abandoned in favour of defending key spots such as Cromer.

Story in the Great Yarmouth Mercury

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.

He said he was pressing the government to take up his proposal.

“If my proposal were accepted by the government they (householders) would be able to sell their property to the local authority,” he said.

It is a small, modest proposal but really significant to those people with houses at serious risk Lord Smith of Finsbury

Lord Smith said the householder would “then lease it back so they could carry on living in it until such time as erosion actually takes the home away”.

The homes would be bought at the original market value.

“They would have the capital to enable them to move and find somewhere else to live,” he said.

“It is an affordable proposal. The amount of money required is very small indeed compared with the national budget.

“It is a small, modest proposal but really significant to those people with houses at serious risk.”

‘Absolutely delighted’

The proposal was welcomed by Malcolm Kerby, the co-ordinator of the Coastal Concern Action Group which fights for residents of Happisburgh in Norfolk threatened by coastal erosion.

“I’m absolutely delighted. It (Lord Smith’s proposal) is something we have been calling for, for years,” he said.

“It is right and proper there should be some form of financial assistance to people left stranded in this situation.”

He said at Happisburgh 26 properties had been lost over the years to coastal erosion and six homes were in imminent danger of falling into the sea.

Story from BBC News – watch the video

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.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has been considering the idea but has not in the past been keen on a plan that could cost up to £400 million.

The Environment Agency is now working with local authorities to identify the most vulnerable areas and draw up plans to evacuate people from houses that are likely to fall into the sea over the next 20 years. Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincolnshire coasts are most at threat, Lord Smith said.

“There will be parts of the coast that can’t in perpetuity be defended. We can’t build a concrete wall around the whole of England,” the former Culture Secretary, said.

According to estimates by the Environment Agency, there are 200-250 properties that are likely to fall into the sea over the next 20 years. Defra estimates that another 2,000 — worth £400 million — are “at risk”.

“I would very much like to see the Government develop a sale-and-lease-back scheme,” Lord Smith said. “You are talking about the permanent loss of someone’s property through no fault of their own, sometimes the property has been in a family for several generations.”

The Environment Agency is now drawing up shoreline management plans for every part of the coastline, in consultation with local authorities.

A Defra spokesman said: “We have recently consulted on proposals to provide homeowners who lose a property to erosion with demolition and moving costs up to £6,000 a property.”

Story in the Times

Ministers are looking at whether property owners should be compensated if coastal areas have to be yielded to the rising sea because of climate change.

Environment Agency (EA) chairman Lord Smith told MPs that some of the coast would have to be surrendered. He told the House of Commons environment, food and rural affairs select committee that the EA had also advised the Government that the issue of compensation ‘needs to be seriously looked at’.

He said: ‘We understand the Government is considering this, but we don’t know yet what they have decided.’

Lord Smith said that, while compensation was automatically paid in some cases, for example where agricultural land was taken to provide an alternative habitat, there was no compensation where a property was lost because of coastal erosion, particularly where sea defences were no longer maintained.

He said managed realignment was something that might need to be considered, not as a blanket solution or as a preferred option, but where it was the necessary way of coping long-term with coastal erosion.

‘That needs to be looked at in detail in each specific instance together with local communities that may be affected. These are not decisions for us alone. These are decisions that have to be taken with the people that might be affected. That is a point we have been making very strongly to the Government.’

Lord Smith welcomed the Government’s draft Flood and Water Management Bill, which follows recommendations by Sir Michael Pitt to avert the problems that arose from the floods in 2007.

The Bill gives local authorities a leadership role in flood risk management and the EA an oversight role with the remit to devise a strategy for flood and coastal erosion risk management (Surveyor, 23 April 2009).

Story on the LogalGov.co.uk website

As fears grow of a metre sea level rise by the end of the century, the Environment Agency has told Sky News Online it is impossible to defend all of Britain’s coastline.

Many places along the UK’s East Coast will become particularly vulnerable to flooding.

The Environment Agency (EA) is already planning new defences. It has chosen to spend £50m on protection in Ipswich, including a new barrier, like that already across the Thames.

Just along the coast, Jaywick near Clacton has also been given sea defences to protect the 2,600 homes that lie almost at sea level.

But with 1.7 million properties in flood risk areas in the UK, many other places will not be as lucky.

EA chairman Lord Smith told Sky News Online: “We’re not going to be able to protect every single inch of coastline. We’ve got something like two thousand miles of sea defences already that we have to maintain, that we have to keep in order.

“There are some places where even if we had a completely bottomless purse, we wouldn’t be able to defend… Happisborough I’m afraid is one of those.”

The village of Happisburgh in Norfolk is fast losing its battle with the sea.

For years, residents have watched as cliffs supporting their houses have crumbled.

Diana Wrightson feels the government has abandoned them: ”It’s disappeared very quickly,” she said.

“One year we lost eight metres from the front. This year we’ve lost one, so you cannot tell how fast it’s going to happen. It depends on the weather and the tides.”

A metre rise would mean many areas of the UK would be inundated, particularly along the East Coast, if new defences are not built.

Hull, East Anglia, much of the Thames Estuary and Portsmouth are among the main areas at risk.

For most of the UK, storm surges, fuelled by extreme weather, will cause the most damage.

Professor Tim Lenton from the University of East Anglia told Sky News Online the East Anglian coast will be worst hit.

He said: “We know when that mixture goes wrong and we get the high tide and the weather and the wind behind it – on the back of a risen global sea level – then we have the concern for big flooding events.”

A recent report predicted the cost of damage from sea levels rising could increase from £1.5bn a year to £21bn a year by the 2080’s.

So while protecting most places may be possible, the question is whether the huge Government investment needed for the defences will be forthcoming.

Story by Catherine Jacob, environment correspondent on the Sky News website

Coastal campaigners from Norfolk have had an “encouraging” meeting with the man in charge of the nation’s flood defences.

A group of politicians, councillors from the north and east coasts and residents of seaside and low-lying Broads villages met Environment Agency chairman Lord Smith yesterday.

Afterwards an upbeat North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb said he was very encouraged by the comments they heard.

The biggest breakthrough was hearing Lord Smith reveal a change of mindset to look at defending communities rather than have an apparent enthusiasm for abandoning them and writing them off.

He also accepted a case should be made for compensation for those properties lost to the sea.

Mr Lamb said the agency chairman acknowledged it was the most sensitive issue his organisation had to deal with.

“He accepted they had in the past been guilty of giving the impression they wanted to give up land to the sea, and there was a need to get better at working with communities,” he added.

It was a very positive and encouraging meeting that also included EA chief executive Paul Leinster and was a “heartening recognition of the importance of defending communities”, said Mr Lamb.

Lord Smith also said he had been talking to Defra and Treasury officials about the issues and had visited Sea Palling while in Norfolk earlier this year to see the situation for himself.

It was a marked contrast to a ministerial meeting four years earlier which resulted in a blank rejection of any thought of compensation or recognition that affected communities needed to be treated fairly, said the MP.

Mr Lamb last night flew out to the Netherlands as chairman of an all- party group on coastal issues, to see how it deals with erosion and flooding.

Story in the Great Yarmouth Mercury

A FRESH call will be made for the Government to carry out an investigation into whether offshore dredging has contributed to large losses of land on the East Riding coast.

In the past year, unprecedented chunks of cliff measuring almost three times the length of a double-decker bus have disappeared into the sea.

East Riding Council wrote to the Government requesting an independent study into whether offshore dredging is a factor in the high rates of erosion.

However, officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) say a series of studies have already been carried out and no link was made between the erosion and dredging.

Monitoring of the region’s coastal erosion has shown 89ft (27m) sections of land have vanished to the north and south of Withernsea.

East Riding Council have invited new Environment Agency chairman, Lord Smith of Finsbury, to see first hand the effects of coastal erosion and to ask for a research study to be commissioned.

According to the latest figures, 4.48 million tons of aggregates were dredged from the Humber region in the past year. Dredging takes place in a number of areas, including sites near Easington and Spurn Point.

A Defra spokesman said: “All dredging applications are rigorously assessed for any adverse effects and for potential contribution to erosion. There is no evidence that authorised aggregate dredging has had any impact on the coast.”

Derek Crook lost his home in Seaside Lane, Tunstall, near Withernsea, to coastal erosion last year and now lives in a caravan yards from the cliff edge.

The 68-year-old said: “I do believe dredging has a big impact on coastal erosion. It is not allowed on the continent and it seems crackers we allow this to go on around our coast.

Story on This is Hull and East Riding website

AREAS of the Suffolk coast will not be abandoned “unless it is absolutely necessary”, the chairman of the Environment Agency said yesterday as he held a series of meetings with groups concerned at plans to stop maintaining some of the estuary defences.

Lord Smith, who was flown by helicopter up the coast from Bawdsey to Easton Bavents, said he wanted the agency to work with local communities to identify the best solutions and find funding from a variety of possible sources.

“We want to make sure we protect as much as possible. We need to agree solutions for each individual estuary. I certainly don’t want to abandon anything unless we absolutely have to,” he said.

Lord Smith arrived at Felixstowe by car and was taken across the Deben by boat to meet members of Suffolk Coast Against Retreat.

He later visited East Lane, Bawdsey, where new sea defence work is scheduled to get under way soon – part-financed by the proceeds from the sale of “greenfield” land for housing development – before boarding a helicopter for a flight along the coast and a meeting in Southwold with the Blyth Strategy Group and the Blyth Estuary Group.

Campaigners urged him to find more money to help to “hold the line” along the cost for at least the next 20 years to enable more knowledge about coastal trends and climate change to be accumulated.

They also urged him to help relax some of the restrictions which make it difficult for landowners and local authorities to get together to undertake local public-private schemes.

Lord Smith said the national flood defence budget would be rising over the next couple of years from £600million to £800million.

“We obviously have to look at the needs of the whole of England and Wales but Suffolk is a very important part of that and we will try to make sure we deploy the funds we have available for Suffolk as best as we possibly can,” he said.

Lord Smith said there was certainly a case for looking at ways to help communities take action themselves. “However, I don’t think we can tear up all the planning laws and I don’t think we can remove some of the important environmental protections which are in place. But what we can do is try to work with the grain rather than against it,” he said.

“I very much want to see the Environment Agency working with local communities, not coming in with pre-conceived ideas but sitting down with people to talk seriously about what the options are and how we can go forward and provide the best possible protection for people.

“I want to do our very level best to protect as much as we possibly can. How we can do that has be the burden of conversation over ht next few years.

“There is some money available but there will never be the amount of money I would like to have at our disposal. So we also need to explore ways how we can tap into other sources as well. That might come from developers, other public sources and private contributions. Let’s see how we can put together the funding that might make things possible,” he added.

Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer, who was involved in yesterday’s talks, said he hoped Lord Smith would act in a way which would not portray the agency as an arm of government but as an independent assessor.

“He clearly understands the issues and I have high hopes. We’ll do what we can do locally and but in the end we’ve got to get sufficient money from the Government to protect the coastline of England,” he said.

Story by David Green in the East Anglian Daily Times

SEA defence campaigners will today urge top decision-makers to help remove legal barriers to enable public-private partnerships to “hold the line” on the Suffolk coast for at least the next 20 years.

Lord Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, is due to see the eroding coastline and meet groups which are opposing the agency’s plans to phase out the maintenance of flood walls in Suffolk’s estuaries.

The agency – working within updated guidelines issued by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – believes the work would not be sustainable and cannot be justified, economically or environmentally, especially in the face of rising sea levels.

However, campaigners will today call on Lord Smith to help local authorities and landowners to “hold the line” for the next 20 years to allow more knowledge to be developed about coastal trends.

In particular they want them to help remove legal barriers which may prevent landowners raising existing earth walls to the height agreed following the disastrous east coast floods of 1953. Many of the walls have slumped or become undermined due to lack of maintenance.

Campaigners want local authorities and landowners to have the unhindered freedom to create public-private partnerships to carry out sea defence work in some vulnerable areas.

Lord Smith, whose visit has been arranged by Suffolk Coast Against Retreat (SCAR), set up two years ago with the help of Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer, will travel by helicopter from Bawdsey along the coast as far as Easton Bavents where a DIY sea defence scheme financed by landowner Peter Boggis was halted by Natural England, the Government’s countryside and conservation agency.

SCAR chairman, Graham Henderson, who is co-ordinating today’s visit, said last night: “Our fundamental message to Lord Smith will be that we want to hold the line in the medium term – over the next 20 years – to allow more knowledge to be developed. In that time we want to see the walls maintained.”

Mr Henderson said public-private partnerships could be the way forward with local authorities and landowners providing the finance for schemes.

“While extra money from the government would be welcome, we can’t see that happening in the present economic climate but we need help from Defra and the Environment Agency in removing the legal barriers to carry out schemes.

“We appear to have a problem in raising sea defence walls to the heights specified following the 1953 floods – currently it cannot be done without the approval of the Environment Agency and Natural England and without planning permission.

“We want them to help us rather than put barriers in the way. We are not saying this should be done willy-nilly but we want more help to get through the legalities.”

Mr Henderson revealed that talks about this issue – involving the Environment Agency, Natural England, the NFU and the Country Land and Business Association – had been taking place and the next one was scheduled for November.

“Since we responded to the agency’s flood defence plans we feel we have been listened to – that is exemplified by the way the eastern area flood defence committee has not accepted the Blyth strategy. But it has to be a two-way process,” he added.

Lord Smith is due to arrive at Felixstowe by car and to take the ferry across the Deben to the café at Bawdsey where he will have a private meeting with members of SCAR.

He will then visit East Lane, Bawdsey where a public-private partnership is behind a project which will see “greenfield land sold for housing development and the £2.5 million proceeds of the sale used to defend a stretch of coast which includes a Martello tower.

Lord Smith will return to Bawdsey for lunch before boarding a helicopter and viewing the coastal defences en route to Southwold, where he is due to have a private meeting with members of the local authority-run Blyth Strategy Group and the local campaign organisation, the Blyth Estuary Group.

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “The sustainable management of the coast requires a strategic approach and a regulatory framework within which sea defences can be built and maintained to ensure that legal obligations are met.

“We believe that the current arrangements provide protection of the public interest and would not wish to see a relaxation that could jeopardise community and environmental interests. The current consenting regime and consultation process is in place to make sure that building of defences takes into account the interest of the wider community.”

Story by David Green in the East Anglian Daily Times

“The environment and our stewardship of it is quite simply the most important issue facing our generation,” he says. “The Environment Agency stands at the point where environmental change has its greatest impact on the lives of ordinary people. It’s where floods and water quality, and planning and handling of waste and a whole range of other issues are both directly relevant to people and have their greatest impact.”

It is vital that the agency works alongside communities, rather than imposing solutions on them, Lord Smith argues.

On coastal issues he says:

But he concedes that no amount of public consultation or joined-up governmental response will succeed in pleasing everyone, particularly in contentious areas such as coastal flood defence spending. Rising sea levels are putting parts of the UK coastline under serious threat, with debates raging over which merit all-out defence against the waves or a managed retreat.

“We will do what we can to defend as many communities as we possibly can,” Lord Smith says. “We are already working to make sure that even with climate change, rising sea levels and greater unpredictability in the weather we can defend these locations for the next 25, 50, or 100 years. We won’t be able to do that everywhere; the resources aren’t there and sometimes the cost of building the defences will be astronomical compared with the benefits.”

But he adds: “We have to recognise that for the people whose houses are under threat that sort of cost-benefit analysis is irrelevant: it’s their home. We must try to be as open and transparent, clear and sensitive as we can in discussing with coastal communities how we deploy limited resources.”

There is, he says, also a need for “serious discussions” with the government about what compensation or other assistance that could be made available to the people whose homes fall victim to climate change. Meanwhile, the chairman says he will make the case for extra resources for the Environment Agency whenever he can.

Read the full article by Alison Thomas on the Public Service website