More delays for vital sea defences

A public inquiry costing up to £100,000 may have to be held to make progress on plans to protect a vulnerable stretch of the Holderness coast from the sea.
Erosion  - seen here at Skipsea - is threatening an embankment at Tunstall, close to the Sand-le-Mere caravan site.Erosion  - seen here at Skipsea - is threatening an embankment at Tunstall, close to the Sand-le-Mere caravan site.
Erosion - seen here at Skipsea - is threatening an embankment at Tunstall, close to the Sand-le-Mere caravan site.

East Rising Council is planning £600,000 defences close to Sand-le-Mere caravan site at Tunstall where the sea is in danger of breaking through into an important watercourse.

Coastal erosion has seen chunks of cliff lost from an embankment built in the 1950s, leading to fears that in a storm water could surge into Tunstall Drain, flooding fields and villages and even cutting off a large chunk of southern Holderness.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Hundreds of tonnes of rock was used to shore up the crumbling defences six years ago, but it was only meant to be a stopgap.

The plan involves building two bunds 200m inland, one over Tunstall Drain and another over a smaller drain, with sluices which can close in extreme weather so the area of land closest to the sea would flood in extreme events, rather than farmsteads agricultural land inland.

Civil engineering services manager Richard Lewis said: “The scheme will protect a significant amount of farmland from being contaminated with saltwater and it will also prevent the eastern part of Holderness from effectively becoming an island.”

The old embankment will be allowed to breach “naturally”, eventually forming a new intertidal area, with dunes.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Nobody knows exactly how and when that will happen,” added Mr Lewis. “The embankment is very close to the cliff top and at some point erosion will catch up with it.”

Plans were passed by the council in 2014. But while the owners of Sand-le-Mere have agreed to the scheme, negotiations with the landowner to the south have failed to reach agreement. East Riding Council is now looking to use a compulsory purchase order to acquire the land, which could lead to a public inquiry, if there is an objection. A report seeking Cabinet approval for the CPO says legal advice, hiring a barrister and other technical proof could cost up to £100,000.

Unopposed it could mean work starting next year - but a public inquiry would add another year’s wait.

Related topics: