Call for fund to cover coastal erosion costs
A CALL has been made for the Government to launch a national fund to cover the often unforeseen costs of coastal erosion.
A report warns that East Riding Council may not have sufficient funding to cover the cost of demolishing all 24 properties, set to be lost by 2025.
It could leave homeowners having to pick up the cost of knocking down their own home, as well as relocating.
The news comes as residents living close to Yorkshire’s underthreat coastline have called for more to be done to protect their homes after it emerged up to 3ft of land was being lost a month on one stretch.
RESIDENTS LIVING close to Yorkshire’s under-threat coastline have called for more to be done to protect their homes after it emerged up to 3ft of land was being lost a month on one stretch.
Surveys have shown that south of Withernsea, more than a metre (3.2ft) per month crumbled away between last March and December.
Council officials were out using satellite-based navigation systems yesterday to monitor erosion at Skipsea, more than 20 miles away, where more than 20 homes on Green Lane are perched on the cliffedge.
A report to an East Riding Council scrutiny committee warns that it will only take a “single erosion event” for a large number of homes becoming “at imminent risk within the year.”
The council’s most recent aerial survey shows 24 properties will be at risk of coastal erosion by 2025, and some 237 by 2105.
Vast swathes of Holderness outside the built-up areas of Bridlington, Withernsea and Hornsea, have been left undefended for decades as a result of a “do nothing” policy, agreed by successive Governments.
Coastal defences are judged “not economically, socially or environmentally sustainable” for much of the sparsely inhabited area, which has one of the fastest eroding coastlines in North West Europe.
Last October, residents in Withernsea celebrated after securing a £3m grant from Europe towards extending the defences by 400m and saving a key coastal road. However Skipsea, which saw above average cliff losses of 1.8 metres in the 10-month period, is in an undefended area.
Sarah Carlill moved into her home on Green Lane, Skipsea, two years ago in May, spending
£15,000 to acquire a “shack” and another £15,000 on making her home cosy. She is now one of six hoping that a housing association’s plans to develop land inland for housing come to fruition.
She said: “It’s frustrating. They will do it for Withernsea, for Bridlington, but they won’t do it for Green Lane. If I was Boris, I’d put a sea defence up, end of. I asked even if I won the Lottery could I put a sea defence up? She said: ‘You are not allowed, they don’t want you to do anything.”
Next door neighbour Chey Kenyon said: “As soon as I wake up I look to see if the fence is there before I put the kettle on. Once it takes my fence I will start worrying. I’m hoping we get another five years.”
Her main concern is the end of the road going which will prevent access to their homes. “Rather than building new houses, they could put rock armour in front of existing houses,” she said.