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

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.”