CoastView: Coastal Defence in the papers
Norfolk to ban building near coastline
The Independent on Sunday on 7 Apr 1991
By DAVID NICHOLSON-LORD, Environment Editor
NORFOLK has become the first British county to change its planning policies because of global warming. It wants to ban new development on land near the coast which will be flooded as sea levels rise.
The county council's draft structure plan, now being examined by the Department of the Environment, would involve a 'setback' line 75 metres or more from the advancing sea. Buildings would not be allowed in front of this line. Critics, including some district councils, say that thousands of existing homes that lie on the wrong side of the setback line would be blighted.
Martin Shaw, Norfolk's director of planning and property, said the idea was new to Britain. 'This is simply a start,' he added. 'The difficulties of implementing it have yet to be fully faced.' The Government could compensate householders living in front of the sea, which is advancing on parts of Norfolk at more than a metre a year. Elsewhere on the east coast - in Lincolnshire, for example - the rate is two metres. Global warming is expected to add another 2ft rise in sea levels by the second half of the next century.
According to Keith Clayton, professor of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia, the odds against a potentially disastrous storm-surge, such as that responsible for the 1953 floods, have narrowed from 1 in 100 to 1 in 20-25. With sea-levels only a foot higher, the odds could be 1 in 10.
Vulnerable areas include the stretch of coast from Great Yarmouth northwards, including villages such as Mundesley, Trimingham and Overstrand, east of Cromer. Further west, Hunstanton, Holme and Brancaster are at risk. The plan will rely for its success on backing from the three district councils which decide planning applications in the coastal zone - King's Lynn and West Norfolk, North Norfolk and Great Yarmouth. Their planning policies are supposed to reflect the county's structure plan. But the three councils have given the proposal a mixed reception.
To protests from local residents, Great Yarmouth recently turned down an application for a bungalow on eroding coast at Scratby, north of the town. In West Norfolk, however, Adrian Parker, the district planning officer, said the proposal had been 'dreamed up at a late stage' by the county council. It was 'not particularly relevant' to West Norfolk and was unlikely to be incorporated into local planning for two years.
David Evans, chief planner for North Norfolk, described the proposal as 'far-reaching' but said the main obligation remained with landowners. He added: 'We shall be defining areas which are at risk and letting the developer make up his own mind. But unless someone is proposing to build within 10 yards of a cliff which is falling down, an embargo will never happen.'
Mr Shaw, meanwhile, insists that the effect 'would be likely to be an embargo on further major development between the setback line and the coast'. Professor Clayton has criticised local authorities for allowing development, much of it occupied by elderly people, too near the coast. Last week he welcomed the Norfolk initiative and accused local councils of amateurishness and a 'reluctance to come to terms with the true situation'. He added: 'If they had thought of it first they would probably think it was a good idea. People who represent coastal constituencies are under a lot of pressure. They stand for election on a platform of spending money to stop coastal erosion. There are not too many votes in telling people they should move off an eroding cliff.'
Crumbling sea defences 'need systematic review'
The Independent on 13 May 1992
By COLIN BROWN
More co-ordination on the state of Britain's weakening sea defences has been urged by the National Audit Office.
In a report published today, the NAO, an independent watchdog on public spending, says a national record of cases of flooding and erosion should be built up to help analyse the state of the country's defences. The report quotes a 1990 survey by the National Rivers Authority which found one-sixth of defences had a lifespan of less than three years. About 35 per cent of privately or corporately-owned defences were in need of significant or moderate works. Today's study says the Ministry of Agriculture estimated that, after the major storms in 1989-90, about pounds 30m needed to be spent on damage repairs, with another pounds 30m on longer-term plans to replenish beaches.
Although the ministry had studied the cause of damage to beaches after the storms, the NAO says the widespread flooding in 1989-90 underlined the need for 'wider and more structured assessment of the performance of defences'. The lack of co-ordination was cited in two cases: at Hurst Spit in Hampshire, the county council blamed increasing erosion on the building of concrete sea walls and groynes in Christchurch Bay; and at Hastings, a gap had to be created in a solid concrete groyne to allow shingle to pass through and replenish beaches which provided protection for cliffs further along the coast. The report adds: 'A more systematic review of the performance and adequacy of coastal defences is needed. The ministry should introduce arrangements for evaluating the coastal defence programme as a matter of urgency and set up a pilot scheme of post-project appraisal of schemes with a view to its cost-effective introduction on a national basis.'
MPs call for shake-up of Britain's coastal defences'
The Independent on 129 Apr 1992
By NICHOLAS SCHOON, Environment Correspondent
A RADICAL shake-up in the management of coasts and sea defences is being sought by a cross-party group of MPs. The Commons Select Committee on the Environment decisively rejected evidence from Government witnesses that present arrangements for the United Kingdom's 9,500-mile coastline were working well. In a report published yesterday, the MPs speak of 'centuries of unco-ordinated decisions. . . inadequacies in legislation, anomalies in the planning system, a lack of central guidance and overlapping and conflicting policies and responsibilities between a host of bodies'. There are cases in which coastal defence works have worsened erosion nearby. The document comes when pressure on Britain's coasts has never been greater -from development and eroding seas, which are rising slowly and may speed up because of global warming. More than 80 Acts deal with coastal zones, and up to 240 different government departments, public agencies and local councils have some sort of responsibility for the coastline.
The two leading government departments involved are Environment - because it covers planning, nature conservation and environmental protection - and the Ministry of Agriculture, in charge of coastal defences and flood protection. The committee says the Government should seriously consider ending the Ministry of Agriculture's responsibilities and set up a coastal zone unit overseeing a national strategy in the Department of the Environment. It wants district councils to be made the main planning authority out to the 12-nautical-mile limit of territorial waters, to help regulate dredging, presently controlled by the Government. Conservationists want a review of flood defences following the publication yesterday of a study by English Nature. It showed that in 15 years up to half the salt marsh area had been lost between Felixstowe, Suffolk, and the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, because of erosion by the sea.
NO SHORE BET: The cost of holding back the rising tides
The Times 18-01-1999
For years, politicians have been arguing about the erosion of Britain's sovereignty by the European Union. Yet the gradual disappearance of Britain itself has never received the same attention. Much like the gradual seepage of power from Westminster to Brussels, Britain has been slipping beneath the waves for decades. That rate of disappearance is now set to accelerate. On the East Coast, an area the size of Jersey could be submerged in the next 20 years. Meeting this threat with a Maginot line of sea walls would cost taxpayers millions of pounds. A debate is needed on how Britain might best fight on its beaches.
Responsibility for defending our island against Neptune's invasion is confused. Two Whitehall departments, the Environment Agency, local authorities, drainage boards and regional flood defence committees has to wade through more than 80 Acts of Parliament. Politicians have ample opportunity to pass the buck.
The conventional wisdom used to be that sea walls were the best This has been usurped by the concept of "managed retreat": sea defences are to be abandoned at certain points, so natural habitats such as salt marshes - can slow down the sea's advance as well as create new habitats for wildlife. The members of the Agriculture Select Committee endorse this idea, considering it "time to declare an end to the centuries-old war with the sea and seek a peaceful accommodation". So too does the Government, delighted by the savings it might make: sea walls cost up to £5 million per kilometre to build. Abandoning land to the sea may be a practical solution in uninhabited regions. Yet rural communities are appalled by this policy of aquatic appeasement. They would prefer to remain steadfast against the elements. But finance to build new defences may not be made available. Spending more taxpayers' money on concrete walls may well be akin to pouring money into the sea, a futile attempt to control nature. In the long list of priorities, these millions might be better spent on schools or hospitals. Making such choices is the stuff of politics. Even so, a survey of the areas most at risk from flooding should be conducted, so that the scant resources available might be used effectively. The responsibility for coastal and sea defences needs to be clarified. Above all, ministers should encourage a debate about the costs and benefits of sea defences against managed retreats. Their strategy to deal with this marine threat should be revealed, not sunk deep in Whitehall.