Financial lifeline for residents driven out by the sea

Demolition contractors are poised to move in and knock down four clifftop chalets in Aldbrough on Yorkshire's East Coast.

The properties could have survived a few more months or even years but the access road is already threatened by the relentless advance of the sea.

In the past the need to find thousands of pounds to cover demolition costs has added to residents' anguish.

But for the first time, the local authority is picking up the cost of bulldozing properties.

Retired plumber Roger Bielby and wife Pat bought their house cheap a decade ago for 11,000, knowing that one day it would go over the cliff – but thought they would have had five years more on the seafront.

They feel fortunate to have moved to a council bungalow in the village earlier this year, although they still miss their old home.

Mrs Bielby said: "For about two years the house has been vibrating – there was a little pot wren in the window and every time there was bad weather it would have turned around.

"You could hear the sea pounding some nights and it did disturb me sometimes.

"It's gone a lot quicker in the last couple of years – we thought might have another five years living there.

"We liked it down there but it was a case of whether we wanted to stay round Aldbrough and we were fortunate enough that this came up.

"We have nothing to complain about – the council has kept us informed every step of the way."

East Riding Council has used money from the 1.2m Pathfinder scheme to pick up the demolition costs for all four properties.

Sue and Gary Patchett had lived in their two-bedroomed cottage on the clifftop for 12 years. The house has already avoided being lost to the sea once – it was moved inland on telegraph poles when it was first threatened by erosion – but won't escape this time.

As a child Mrs Patchett remembered there being a car park, arcade and coffee and tea shop on the cliff-top: "That was only 25 years ago and it seemed to go real slow then."

She added: "I saw the fencing for the first time on Sunday and I just cried. I loved it there. I didn't want to move into the village, we were a tight-knit community."

Mrs Patchett puts some of the blame for the rapidly-eroding land on the continuing work at nearby Cowden to blow up unexploded ordnance left behind when the firing range closed in 1998.

Mr Patchett added: "This house started off a mile to sea. They built them for Land Army – there'd be one room with six single beds.

"It certainly is going quicker – it is going in droves. The amount of land that has been lost is unbelievable."

Under the Pathfinder scheme those whose homes are at "immediate" risk are getting the demolition costs paid for, and some financial assistance with relocation.

For those with less urgent needs, buy and lease back options are a possibility, with the council becoming the landlord, as well as financial help with making home alterations.

The scheme has already paid for the demolition of "Shanty Town" – a line of wooden chalets and shacks at Skipsea.

The money is a one-off grant from the Government and has to be allocated by next March.

Coun Jonathan Owen said: "We will be seeing if we can use the positive case studies that have come out of this to attract further funding."

Coun Matthew Grove said in years to come there may be no financial assistance, and said people coming to the area to buy – often from West Yorkshire – should beware making a snap decision.

He said: "There are people who are quite close to the cliff-edge who bought their property a year or two ago and paid the full market price and that concerns me."

Only memories remain along crumbling cliffs

The properties about to be lost to the sea at Aldbrough join a long line of now-fading memories.

Within the past four years two other clifftop homes in the village have had to come down.

In March, nearly all the motley collection of shacks, caravans and converted railway carriages which had clung to the clifftop at Skipsea since the 1930s were demolished.

Most of the homes were unoccupied, but one resident had to move.

Two months previously the observation tower – built as part of the Ringborough Battery in 1943 – collapsed onto the beach.

When it was built it was more than 300ft from the edge, but by the end of last year, so much of the cliff had gone that it was teetering on its concrete plinth.

It is estimated about 30 houses on the Holderness Coast could be lost to the sea in the next 20 years.

East Riding Council has so far spent 144,292 of the 1.2m it was allocated by the Government supporting 20 residents affected by coastal erosion in the area.

The funding has helped to cover the costs of demolition.