‘Concrete coasts’ won’t defend Yorkshire from rising sea levels’

It will not be possible to “hold the line” everywhere around the coasts with concrete sea defences in the face of rising sea levels and severe storms, the National Trust has warned.
Phil Dyke: Need to work with natural processes to conserve beauty and wildlife of coasts.Phil Dyke: Need to work with natural processes to conserve beauty and wildlife of coasts.
Phil Dyke: Need to work with natural processes to conserve beauty and wildlife of coasts.

The Trust, which manages 775 miles of coastline around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, is calling for a move away from hard defences to working with nature and moving people, infrastructure and habitats out of harm’s way where possible.

Homes, hotels and businesses are threatened by the tides off the North Sea all along the Yorkshire seaboard with a number of protection schemes carried out or proposed. Safeguarding the fragile boulder South Cliff in Scarborough is the main focus of a plan which should help protect the coastline for the next 50 years.

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The project is a scaled-down version of the original plans, which controversially included proposals for rock armour’ defences. Critics feared the features would spoil the coast’s beauty. Instead much of the focus is now on piling material behind the Spa Complex to reinforce a weak point identified deep down in the cliff face.

A report to the council last year stated that 380 nearby properties are under threat from increasingly heavy seas and the risk of landslides which have the potential to cause over £100m of damage.

Research for the National Trust reveals the number of buildings at medium to high risk of coastal change increased from 116,518 in England in 2005 to 129,013 in 2014 - suggesting around 12,500 homes and businesses had been built in at-risk areas in a decade.

The increase comes despite guidance against such developments in the face of the growing risk to coasts from rising sea levels, which are expected to rise by up to a metre by 2100, the Trust said.

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And the coasts are increasingly under threat from more frequent and severe storms - such as those which battered the UK in the winter of 2013 and 2014 - as a result of climate change.

In a new report, the Trust points to Environment Agency figures which show more than 700 properties in England could be lost to coastal erosion in the next 15 years, while around a quarter of a million homes and businesses face a high risk of flooding.

It is calling for urgent action from the Government and other agencies to ensure that all coastal areas are ready for the challenges they face - and warns that a ring of concrete around the coasts is not the answer.

Launching the new report, Phil Dyke, coastal marine adviser at the National Trust, said: “We need to actively transform from maintaining old sea defences to working with natural processes, where and when it’s appropriate, to conserve the beauty and wildlife of our coasts.”

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He acknowledged that people were “passionate” about the coasts as a nation.

But he pointed to the White Cliffs of Dover which “seem permanent somehow yet they are eroding at 10cm a year”.

And he said: “The nightmare scenario for me would be to end up in 100 years with a coast rimmed in concrete.”

Infrastructure such as the Thames Barrier and Portsmouth’s sea defences and those of other towns around the coasts will need to be maintained, he said. But elsewhere, measures to adapt to coastal changes would be required including providing financial support schemes for people affected by erosion and rolling back and realigning sea defences, the report said.