East Coast beaches ‘fast disappearing’

East Coast beaches fast

East Lane promontory is recognised to be of key strategic importance in management of the wider coast frontage, influencing the section of the coast from the Alde/Ore Estuary in the north, through to the entrance of the Deben Estuary in the south. The East Lane promontory acts to hold the basic morphological structure of the coastline and regulate the dominant north to south drift.
In this strategic role East Lane provides an essential control to the Coast providing a foundation for sustainable defence management well beyond its immediate location.
The red line indicates the potential “line of retreat” without East Lane point. (Shingle Street lost within 20 years)

 

The BBC has placed a video on the rapid disappearance of many beaches along the East Coast of the UK, where an average of half a mile being lost every fifty years due to the increased erosion. See it at www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28551480

The Winter storms due to Climatic change coupled with the draw downdraw down The process by which tides and wave motion remove (draw down) material from a beach and pull it out to sea. A sandy beach experiencing draw down is thus denuded of its sand. The process can be natural (i.e. winter storms) or can be artificially caused (e.g. aggregate dredging, whereby the dredging of sand and gravel offshore causes sand to be drawn down from the beach in order to replace the material which has been dredged). and bigger waves brought about by continuing offshore aggregate dredging causing the seabed to drop has led to a position where not only homes and businesses are facing destruction, but valuable areas of farmland too. The areas economy is now severely threatened.

Gerry Matthews, who used to live in The Netherlands is thus is aghast, reports on one landowner in Suffolk could lose several thousand hectares. The EA heavily discount this, while not adequately reflecting the real value in the 8:1 ratio of value to cost of defending. They are reluctant to support its economic value (only 3 years of value are given in their cost benefit analysis).

He advises that The EA needs to be reformed and split up into more clearly defined functions, writing “They (the EA) need to be much more transparent as well as accountable. Our politicians are generally ignorant to the realities, and easily co-opted by the EA, and confused by the complexity of the subject matter”


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