Approximately half of the coastline of England and Wales is made of rocks that make the coastline vulnerable to coastal erosion (various types of sandstone and clays, chalk and limestone). This is roughly the area from South Devon eastwards, including most of the south coast and the entire east coast of England. Sea defence is a hugely important local issue in many of these areas. Nearly 2/3 of constituencies along it are Conservative controlled and many of the rest are seats we need to win. While even on the west coast of England and Wales, there are many low lying areas that are subject to coastal flooding. So this is a serious issue that a future Conservative government should have a clear well thought policy on.
There are also important principles of conservatism, such as localism and community – allowing people to act on behalf of their own community rather than restricting some activities to the government, that we should be seeking to apply in developing a much clearer and more coherent approach to sea defence policy than the present government is doing.
Six principles for future sea defence policy
1. There should be a presumption in favour of landowners being allowed to build their own sea defences – as they have done for at least a thousand years. Regulation is principally needed a) where defences interfere with longshore drift of sediment and so could adversely affect erosion rates in other areas; and b) where proposed sea defences have a significantly adverse affect on the visual appearance of the coast. However, where neither of these apply, landowners should not have to face a lengthy application process to build basic sea defence structures such as clay banks to protect their land.
2. County councils, rather than district councils, to be designated as the key local authority responsible for sea defence. This would enable allow local councils to employ specialist sea defence staff, rather than simply relying on employing costly engineering consultancy firms. Equally importantly, it would enable much of the DEFRA funding currently channelled through the Environment Agency to be devolved to elected local councils. A forthcoming Conservative green paper will advocate devolving powers from unelected quangos to elected local councils. The Environment Agency would be an excellent example to start with.
3. Joined up government: The impact of climate change means that sea levels are already rising, something that increases Britain’s vulnerability to both coastal flooding and to more extensive coastal erosion. Moreover, as it takes up to 100 years for atmospheric carbon to break down, it is almost inevitable that sea levels will rise still further even with significant reductions in carbon emissions. Yet, the present government currently only spends around 0.1% of public spending on sea defence. To put this into context, this is enough to build just 10 miles of sea wall. Whilst there is no question that public spending will have to be cut in the immediate future, there is an urgent need to give relatively greater weight to sea defence spending if we are not to find ourselves in a few years times facing significantly greater expenditure.
We should not forget that the 1953 North Sea storm surge affected not just coastal areas, but also flooded huge areas of the Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire up to 30 miles inland. 307 people drowned, 30,000 had to be evacuated, while 24,000 homes were destroyed with total damage estimated at between £30 and £50 million (in 1953 prices). The present urgency of giving greater priority to sea defence was well illustrated in November 2007when a similar North Sea storm surge was only a few centimeters short of over topping existing flood defences in East Anglia.
4. Given that we are an island nation, it is extraordinary that we invest at best minuscule amounts on research relating to defence against coastal erosion. Although we do have a government funded oceanographic laboratory predicting storm surges, we have no scientific institute that brings together both scientists specialising in coastal erosion (coastal geomorphologists) and engineering specialists who design flood and erosion defences.
A future Conservative government should make it priority to set up such a specialist agency to conductspecialist research on sea defence that would avoid the present expensive reliance on engineering consultancy firms. Such companies whilst being at excellent at engineering do not necessarily have the wide ranging expert knowledge of coastal processes that scientists specialising in coastal geomorphology have. The task of such an institute would be firstly, to undertake research and to develop experimental schemes, such as the use of offshore reefs at Sea Palling in Norfolk (pictured) and secondly, to advise local councils on which types of defences against coastal erosion do not in principle harm other parts of the coast downdrift.
In the medium term the establishment of such an institute might actually reduce the relative cost of protecting a given length of coast. This is because there are currently quite a number of examples of poor value sea defence schemes that are largely, or in some cases totally, ineffective because their designers clearly lacked an adequate understanding of the totality of coastal processes.
For example, on the East Anglian coast where I live, one can see examples of new rock groynes costing tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds that are largely ineffective at building up the beach because they are either too close together or too long (as waves refract to no more than 10-15 degrees when they approach the coast any greater angle between the low water mark and the seaward end of the next groyne will render them totally ineffective at trapping longshore drift and building up the beach). In other places, sediment has been dredged from the sea bed close to an eroding beach in order to replenish the beach before the summer tourist season starts. In doing so, offshore bars that are frequently built up in the winter months are destroyed, resulting in larger waves breaking closer inshore and eroding the beach.
5. Tighter regulation of offshore dredging close to the coast. As the effects of dredging on coastal erosion normally only become apparent when it is too late, dredging companies should be required to demonstrate that dredging in a particular area will provide a ‘public benefit’ before being licensed to dredge. This will effectively limit dredging to areas where deposition of sediment is clearly taking place and potentially causing a problem to shipping – as for example at the entrance to ports and estuaries. Sea bed dredging of sediment for the construction industry has been demonstrated to be a significant cause of coastal erosion in some locations. The classic exampleof this was the village of Hallsands in Devon, which in 1917 literally fell into the sea, as a result of sea bed dredging up the coast over the previous 20 years.
6. There is a strong case for including the value of residential property in assessments of economic value undertaken for shoreline management plans (SMPs). At the moment, homeowners whose houses are ‘lost’ to the sea receive no government compensation. Consequently, residential areas are assessed as having little or no economic value, which then provides a justification for ‘managed retreat’ policies on the grounds that the area’s lack of economic importance means that spending on sea defence cannot be justified. Realistically, in the current economic climate, a policy of the government compulsorily purchasing/compensating owners of at risk properties will have to be a medium term aim. However, as an immediate interim measure, the government should at least take responsibility for the cost of demolition of any property at risk of falling into the sea. The effect of including this small cost of around £2-3,000 per house in the economic benefit calculations made in shoreline management plans would be very substantial. For example, a village of 330 houses, currently given a ‘zero’ economic value in SMP calculations would then acquire a minimum economic value of £1 million – which would justify sea defence spending up to this level.
For an island nation this is a really important issue and in many areas near the coast a really important local issue. It’s time we came up with a much more coherent policy than the present government.
