A GOVERNMENT minister has reassured villagers living on the coast they will not lose their homes, even though a government body has put forward a plan to allow the sea inland.

Instead, Floods Minister Phil Woolas said the government had called on the Environment Agency to provide a report on how the coastline can be protected from erosion over the next 100 years.

He also pledged £100m of government funding would be spent on bolstering defences over the next 50 years during a visit to some of the threatened villages where he met parish councillors and residents faced with the prospect of losing their homes under a Natural England option. (more…)

Norfolk is to stand firm against the ravages of the ever-encroaching North Sea for at least another half century after the government confirmed £100m will be spent on sea defences over the next 50 years.

People living in vulnerable coastal and low-lying areas of Norfolk breathed a sigh of relief yesterday after environment minister Phil Woolas gave reassurances their homes would not be left to flood.

Responding to worries over a Natural England draft report, which includes the option of allowing a 25sqm area of Norfolk to flood, Mr Woolas said the proposal was “not an option,” and stressed it was the government who drew up sea defence policy not Natural England.

As he visited the county to see the effect of coastal erosion and listen to local concerns Mr Woolas said the government was committed to keeping the sea at bay for at least the next 50 years and pledged £100m of investment in sea defences over that period. (more…)

Villagers in Norfolk in fear of a scheme to flood them to save the coast have been told that is not the government’s intention.

The floods minister, Phil Woolas, has been visiting Sea Palling, 15 miles up the coast from Great Yarmouth.

He told people there that a scenario by Natural England to allow six villages to succumb to rising sea levels, was not what was going to happen.

He said it was the government’s duty to protect the area.

Read the full story on the BBC News website

A top official from an agency considering the surrender of a large swathe of the Broads to the North Sea walked into the lions’ den last night to speak at a public meeting for the first time about the contentious scheme.

Shaun Thomas, the regional director of Natural England, spoke directly to the representatives of communities that face the threat of being flooded in between 20 to 50 years’ time.

And Mr Thomas told parish council leaders that more public meetings should be held over his organisation’s leaked report which contained proposals to abandon sea defences from Eccles to Winterton. (more…)

Officials from government agency Natural England will be in Norfolk this evening to discuss proposals to surrender 25sq miles of the Broads to the North Sea.

Tonight’s meeting at Somerton village hall, near Stalham, will be the first time the government’s conservations advisers have discussed the report at a forum in Norfolk. (more…)

Flooding minister Phil Woolas will visit Norfolk in July and come face to face with people threatened with losing their homes and businesses if proposals to abandon 25 square miles of the Broads go ahead.

Those behind the Norfolk end of the visit have already made it clear the event should not be confrontational, but part of a reasoned attempt to force the government quango Natural England into dropping a controversial report first revealed in the EDP in late March.

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He will attend a meeting in Lessingham village hall, where he has been invited to make a speech on climate change and its effects on north east Norfolk. He will then face a range of questions from various Norfolk representatives.

The event has been organised by a newly formed group called the North East Norfolk Coastal Parishes Group, which includes seven parishes and the Norfolk County Association of Parish and Town Councils.

Read the full story by Ed Foss on the EDP website