Coastal defences that currently protect huge swathes of farm land, natural habitat and housing are to be moved inland, allowing the sea to flood into low-lying areas.

In some parts of the country, householders and land owners have been told they face spending millions of pounds of their own money to build and repair flood defences to try to protect their property.

Among the areas affected are Medmerry, a popular tourist destination, near Selsey, West Sussex, where 612 acres are to be surrendered to the encroaching sea, and East Head, another nearby beauty spot where residents have been told their homes will no longer be protected.

Along the Humber estuary, around 800 homes scattered along the shoreline are to be left at the mercy of the sea within the next 20 years. At the end of that period, a further 1,000 properties in the area will be allowed to flood, including parts of the villages of Kilnsea and Sunk Island. In East Sussex, 260 acres of the picturesque valley of Cuckmere Estuary will also be lost over the next 15 years.

The new strategies have been drawn up by the Environment Agency, the government body with national responsibility for flooding, as it cannot afford to maintain all of the country’s 2,500 miles of coastal defences in the face of rising sea levels.

Instead, officials are drawing up detailed plans for the entire coast of England and Wales to decide where protection can be withdrawn.

The controversial move, however, has threatened to leave thousands of houses and acres of farmland vulnerable to flooding or even permanently underwater within the next 20 years without any form of compensation.

In some areas, the Environment Agency has said that it will repair and maintain defences only if landowners and residents cover the costs themselves. Home owners could also build their own defences, provided they meet planning and environmental rules.

John Bunn, managing director of Bunn Leisure, a holiday cottage and caravan park owner in the Medmerry area, said they had been forced to spend £1.5 million on flood defences that were completed this year and are planning another £10 million of work over the next two years.

“Our mile of seafront is as much a part of our infrastructure as the facilities we offer and I’m passionate about preserving both.

“Chronic underinvestment in sea defences for more than a decade has put us in the position of having to take matters on ourselves.

“We cannot leave the country to shrink – if the Dutch had taken the same approach Holland would now be half the size.”

In Kilnsea, residents have already taken matters into their own hands and are maintaining the defences themselves after the Environment Agency refused to defend their village.

They raised £200,000 through Environment Agency grants and charities to build a new embankment to keep the water from the Humber estuary from spilling into their village.

Nearly two thirds of the country’s coastline is currently defended with shingle banks, sea walls and barriers that are maintained by the Environment Agency using taxpayers’ money. Some land, such as that owned by the Crown Estate, has privately-maintained defences.

The risk of flooding is due to increase over the next century as sea levels rise by up to three feet. But the Environment Agency cannot afford to build new defences and increase the height of existing infrastructure in all of the areas it covers.

Ministers have instead decided to allow the agency to pick and chose the areas it will defend, with priority being given to towns and areas with special historical or natural interest.

The National Trust is also to abandon some of the 180 miles of coastline under its control after taking the decision that it could no longer afford to hold back rising seas and prevent erosion.

Visitors to Studland beach, in Dorset, which is among the worst affected areas, last week demanded urgent action to save the nature spot after beach huts have had to be moved back three times in the past 25 years due to erosion.

The Government currently spends around £600 million a year on protecting against flooding and coastal erosion and this will increase to more than £800 million over the next three years.

But Alison Baptise, national coastal policy manager at the Environment Agency, said that despite the funding increase, the Environment Agency still needed to prioritise where it spent the money by taking a strategic look at the nation’s coastline as a whole.

“There are clearly some areas that are more difficult than others,” she said. “As the coast is dynamic – it has been changing for years and continues to change – we can’t do the same thing at the same place all the time. We need to adapt how we manage it.

“In some areas there are defences built there that we could keep building up but it is not sustainable economically or good for the environment. These are long term changes and are not going to happen suddenly.”

The policy of abandoning defences and not raising defences in other areas has enraged campaigners, who claim house prices in effected areas have plummeted as residents struggle to sell their properties.

Malcolm Kerby, from campaign group National Voice of Coastal Communities, said: “People buy houses behind flood defences in good faith and then the Environment Agency can choose to move or abandon those defences at no cost to themselves.

“People living in areas that are being abandoned are seeing the value of their homes plummeting and they can’t sell them. Why would anyone want to buy a house in an area that will be regularly flooded in 20 years?”

Story by Richard Gray, Science Correspondent in the Telegraph

It’s a bright sunny day in Studland, Dorset. The wind catches the sand and whips it through the dunes and grasses. Helped by the tides, as each grain moves the shoreline slowly but inevitably shifts.

Emma Wright has worked for the National Trust at Studland for the past seven years.

As we walked along the beach she explained she had become used to seeing areas of the beach swept away.

In November it took just one storm for the sea to reclaim 15 metres of the beach.

Emma showed me red and white hazard tape flapping next to some wooden posts – these were all that remained of the wooden steps once used to access the car park.

“It’s just the vegetation left which is holding the dune together and you can see it cracking all the way through.

“That will be just another chunk of dune grass to fall off into the sea with the next storm”, she says.

Summer holidays

Studland isn’t disappearing overnight – its situation is well documented and is just one section of 279km (173 miles) of coastline in south-west England at risk of erosion.

There are around one million visitors annually, but Emma admitted as the years go on there will be much less to visit.

She explained the rows of beach huts at Studland have been moved inland three times in the past.

“If you come on your summer holidays you want to be on a sandy beach.

“Once that sandy beach isn’t there, you don’t want to be sat in a car park. The beach hut becomes a shed,” she says.

So can anything be done?

It is a dilemma for those keen to protect the beach and those who use it.

“People come here because it’s so wonderfully natural, ” Emma explains.

“The National Trust is about nature conservation.”

That means managed retreat – leaving nature to take its course and the inevitable consequences of erosion.

It is one of those days which is perfect beach-walking weather as long as you are wrapped up warmly.

Howard and Sylvia Oliver come to visit Studland often from their home along the coast in Swanage.

They agree the beach should be left as it is.

Pointing towards Brownsea Island, Howard admired the coast: “Look at that – it’s the open stretch of water and sand, it’s just superb.

“I’d certainly be sad if we lost a lot of it.”

He didn’t want to see groynes – wooden or concrete barriers – put up in the sea to slow down the erosion.

“I think it would be a real shame, ” he says.

Inevitable

The National Trust has experimented with gabions, metal grilles filled with rocks, which are supposed to soak up the force of the waves.

But they were washed away.

Some visitors do believe in a more solid effort.

Clive Arnold was over with his family on the chain ferry for the afternoon.

“I think some drastic action needs to be taken pretty soon. I think if you left nature to take its course the beach would be eroded so fast.

“At least if you put groynes in there would be something left for the people to enjoy.”

It is a view recognised by Emma but she believes it will only delay the inevitable and, anyway, the National Trust is well aware of the sacrifices it will have to make as the erosion continues.

Its own visitor centre, car park and restaurant will be lost.

To relocate would cost an estimated £3.6m and there is nowhere for it to go since most of this peninsula is closely protected as a designated Site of Specific Scientific Interest.

Ironically the National Trust is hampered by the very policies it supports.

No-one can tell how quickly the erosion will take effect. As the sand moves, other areas are enlarged.

“At the moment we’re turning back the clock.

“We’re where we were in Tudor times, the sand is moving around and the water has come in,” but even with expert advice, Emma says the future is unknown and that is what makes her job at Studland unique.

“I’d love to know what it would look like in 100 years. It is ever changing and unpredictable”.

Story by Alison Harper on the BBC News website