EUROPEAN funding could soon be available to protect land and homes in north Suffolk which are to be abandoned to the sea.

East of England MEP Geoffrey van Orden, met flooding and erosion experts from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) in a bid to secure funding to protect the Blyth estuary.

Mr van Orden, who took a boat trip around the estuary in February to see breaches in the walls for himself, said that the meeting in Cambridge was a success and he is now working towards putting in a formal bid for regional development funding. (more…)

CAMPAIGNERS have pleaded with Prime Minister Gordon Brown to intervene in plans to abandon flood defences on the Suffolk coast.

The protestors, angry at plans to withdraw funding for flood defences on the Blyth estuary, staged a demonstration on Southwold promenade – timed to coincide with the Prime Minister’s holiday on the Suffolk coast.

Hundreds of people formed a human chain, linking arms and holding banners reading “Gord Help Us” and “Save Our Shoreline”. (more…)

HUNDREDS of campaigners today formed a human chain along Southwold’s promenade to send a message to Gordon Brown about the Governent’s policy of abandoning the Suffolk coast to the ravages of the sea.

The Blyth Estuary protestors – who are angry about the Environment Agency’s plans to withdraw funding for flood defences at the Blyth Estuary – took their fight to Mr Brown, who is currently enjoying a summer holiday in the area.

The protesters linked arms and chanted “SOS” while some held banners saying: “Gord Help Us. Save Our Shoreline.” (more…)

Flood defence campaigners are to lobby parliament in what could be a crucial week in their bid to save land and homes from being lost to the sea.

Members of the Blyth Strategy Group, which opposes the Environment Agency’s (EA) plans to stop maintaining flood banks in the north Suffolk estuary in the next 20 years, and representatives from local councils will travel to Westminster tomorrow.

The move comes less than a week after environment minister Phil Woolas visited Norfolk communities and told them that in spite of draft proposals by Natural England to allow a 25 sq mile area of land to flood, their homes would not be sacrificed to the sea. (more…)

Groups fighting plans to abandon coastal areas to the waves have resolved to work together to convince the government to drop the controversial proposals.

Councillors from across Suffolk and Norfolk coastal areas and from all levels of local government met for a conference in Southwold today. Also among more than 100 delegates were coastal pressure groups, Natural England, Suffolk Coastal MP John Gummer and Euro MP Geoffrey Van Orden.

They were united in wanting to stop the Environment Agency’s policy of “managed retreat”, or letting nature take its course as sea levels rise and coastal erosion continues. The conference focused on the Blyth estuary, one of the areas which will be most affected by the policy, but also heard of concerns elsewhere on the Suffolk coast and in Norfolk. Delegates decided that co-operation and communication were the key to persuading government to drop the plans and instead invest in flood defences. (more…)

A legal victory by the tenant of a cliff-top chalet in East Anglia is good news for everybody living on the coast of England, it was claimed last night.

Charles England, the tenant of a chalet at Easton Bavents, near Southwold, has won an appeal against a refusal by conservation body Natural England to allow him to maintain the shingle sea defences protecting his property. (more…)