Welsh Response to SMP
A reaction has arisen in West Wales, perhaps the first of many to come as the Shoreline Management Plan is dictated along our British coastline.
The residents of Fairbourne, a coastal community in Gwynedd, West Wales, are considering taking legal action against their Council over the Managed Retreat plans arising from the Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) that would see 400 homes in the village abandoned to the sea by 2055 due to the Council ceasing to maintain their sea defences.
The authority adopted the plan last year after it accepted it would no longer defend Fairbourne, so the residents have formed the Fairbourne Facing Change Community Action Group to identify the issues it wants to see addressed and to explore how they can do so. They have also written to First Minister Carwyn Jones outlining their opposition and to say that they are looking to launch a legal challenge to Gwynedd council’s plans.
The residents are claiming that they had not be consulted and that further research was needed, though the Council claim otherwise, that they had been open with the residents throughout the process. A community newsletter will be sent out and three public meetings will be held to discuss the plans later this year.
In the case of the Norfolk Coastline, people were consulted, and 2,410 duly responded. Just six of these were in favour, four were ‘don’t know’s’ whilst 2,410 were opposed, a 99.6% rejection. But it was nevertheless imposed.
