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. (more…)

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. (more…)

Lord Smith of Finsbury’s comments have also been picked up by the Daily Mail who quote from the Independent article:

While promising to do his ‘level best’ to fund engineering solutions to the problem, Lord Smith warned that all coastal areas could not be saved.

He said: ‘We are almost certainly not going to be able to defend absolutely every bit of coast - it would simply be an impossible task both in financial terms and engineering terms.’

The agency, working with ministers, would have to identify ‘priority areas’ to defend, he said.

Lord Smith suggested that parts of north-east Norfolk and Suffolk faced the greatest threat, according to research by the Agency which will be released in 2009.

In an interview with The Independent, he went on: ‘We will publish next year details of the work that’s been done, where we think the particular threats are, where we think there is current defence in place.

‘We will begin to talk with communities where we think defence is not a viable option.’

He also warned that ministers could no longer rely on insurance companies to cover families who lost their homes , suggesting they would have to be rehoused at the taxpayer’s expense.

His comments will embarrass the government, which in May this year was forced to deny that areas of the Norfolk coastline would be surrendered.

Flooding Minister Phil Woolas said there was ‘no question’ of abandoning seaside villages from Eccles to Winterton if sea levels rise.

Read the full story by Tamara Cohen in the Daily Mail

The story is also picked up in the Guardian, and the Eastern Daily Press

In the Telegraph, Jon Swaine added comments from former Environment Minister, and MP for Suffolk Coastal John Gummer:

Mr Gummer, who has set up Suffolk Coast Against Retreat, a group campaigning for the preservation of vulnerable areas, said: “Chris Smith’s wide ranging speech must be taken seriously. The Government must listen to the concerns of the people of Suffolk and the rest of the East Coast. We want managed defence, not managed retreat. This must not be the first government in history to abandon Britain to the sea.

“Coastal erosion is perhaps the most serious issue that faces the Suffolk Coastal Constituency. We have 74 miles of coastline and all of it is vulnerable.”