Save Our Shores

As a small island, England cannot afford to get any smaller. However in areas, such as East Anglia, the coastline is receding rapidly and the re-building and maintenance of traditional concrete defences has become economically unsustainable.

In Happisburgh, for example the coastline is therefore receding at an alarming maximum rate of a metre a month – 12 metres a year! Residents’ properties, which constitute their lifetime investments and retirement security, are simply falling into the sea.

Breaching of sea defences threatens flooding and salt-poisoning of flat, low-lying agricultural land upon which UK food security depends. Furthermore, along this stretch of coast is situated the Sizewell Nuclear Reactor. The catastrophe in Japan has demonstrated that nuclear reactors and seawater do not mix well.

 Meanwhile, New Zealand has demonstrated that community re-vegetation of coasts, which costs very little indeed, actually cause the shoreline to rise and extend.

 As well as defending the coastline against erosion, trees would help resolve the drought/deluge cycle suffered by the region. Areas in East Anglia receive lower annual rainfall than even Jerusalem. Coastal trees would help conduct much needed airborne moisture from the sea to increase rainfall over dry farmland. In cases of deluge, tree roots would help take up excess water. Further, this would demonstrate a potential path to resolving both today’s economic and environmental issues.

 In practical terms, cliff faces could be sloped and the resulting rubble used to fill stainless steel gabions – inexpensive collapsible metal baskets – leaning back along the slopes. The roots of planted trees will first bind the rubble together and then bind the rubble to the coastal soil, providing economic, immediate protection, which will then grow in strength. Highly salt-tolerant species, such as Sea Buckthorn are required at the shoreline, with moderately salt-tolerant Oaks further back, followed by general trees inland.

 Communities across the UK can readily be involved in gathering tree seeds and nurturing saplings in used supermarket plastic bags of soil in their gardens, for transplanting both to local woodland and to our seaside bio shield.

June 2012 – Happisburgh public meeting and Secretary of State response

The Happisburgh meeting docs are here: https://app.box.com/files/0/f/306509704/Happisburgh_-_June_2012

A public meeting was called in Happisburgh (North Norfolk) where coastline is receding at a rate of a metre a month and the re-building and maintenance of traditional concrete defences has been declared to be economically unsustainable. We reported that New Zealand has demonstrated that community re-vegetation of coasts actually causes the shoreline to rise and extend. Coastal trees would not only defend against coastal erosion, but also help resolve the drought/deluge cycle suffered by the region and demonstrate a potential path to resolving both today’s economic and environmental issues.

Bryony Nierop-Reading, the only remaining resident of an otherwise-demolished row of homes on Happisburgh’s Beach Road, offered her section of the coast for an experiment and is forming the “Save England- SOS Save Our Shores – Happisburgh Branch.”

After the first presentation a show of hands was requested in order to assess interest in exploring the proposal more deeply. All hands but one went up, there were no abstentions and only one person was against – Malcolm Kerby of the Coastal Concern Action Group, who had negotiated 40% compensation from the Government for properties to fall imminently into the sea. We were proposing to save such properties rather than have the community lose 60% of their major lifetime investments and retirement security. Malcolm stated that the Government actively wants this section of coastline to continue to erode and “any proposed works on the coast require the written permission of The Secretary of State [for the Environment]”.

However, a letter forwarded by the Prime Minister from the Secretary of State for Defra stated, “It should be noted that Project OASIS does not need my agreement in principle for a pilot demonstration.” He went on to recommend that the project should “work with a coastal community to develop a bid to the Coastal Communities Fund, which is available to support projects that make better use of coastal assets in producing sustainable economic growth and jobs that are better equipped to adapt to change. This year £24 million was made available and next year this will rise to £28 million.”

It is now up to coastal communities whether to act on this opportunity.