The study, which is being conducted by the Environment Agency and will
report in June next year, uses a points system to decide which parts
of coastline will receive flood defences and which will be abandoned.
The plan comes despite warnings that destructive storm surges are
becoming more frequent with climate change.
.....................................................................................................
Pilot plans drawn up for Norfolk and Kent have already earmarked
communities for destruction, including the villages of Overstrand, in
Norfolk, Leysdown-on-Sea, in north-east Kent, and Bawdsey, in Suffolk.
Historical sites such as the Martello towers on the Suffolk coast,
which were built as look-out posts during the Napoleonic Wars, will
slip into the sea.
Other areas will become more vulnerable to flooding, including
Aldeburgh, in Suffolk and Aylesford in Kent, while valuable farmland
and roads near the coast will be lost.
In Bawdsey, the withdrawal of defences will eventually mean 5,000
acres of agricultural land will be flooded, wells poisoned by salt
water and irrigation for more land ruined.
From The Telegraph, 11/11/07:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/11/nflood111.xml
Coast villages to be sacrificed to the sea
By Melissa Kite and Richard Gray
Whole villages and swathes of agricultural land will be surrendered to
the sea because the Government is unwilling to spend billions of
pounds on flood defences.
Ministers have admitted privately that they are preparing to evacuate
settlements on the east coast within the next 30 years because it is
not "cost effective" to save them.
Thousands of acres of farmland will be allowed to flood, potentially
jeopardising food production in areas such as East Anglia.
Parts of the Norfolk and Suffolk coastline will not be given a penny
for defences because they have been deemed impossible to save,
according to leaked details of the Government's coastal flooding and
erosion risk assessment.
The study, which is being conducted by the Environment Agency and will
report in June next year, uses a points system to decide which parts
of coastline will receive flood defences and which will be abandoned.
The plan comes despite warnings that destructive storm surges are
becoming more frequent with climate change.
Tens of thousands of householders were put on alert last week for one
of the largest tidal surges to strike Britain in 50 years.
The threat was so serious that Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister,
called two meetings of Cobra, the emergency cabinet committee which
plans responses to national disasters.
However, a senior government insider told The Sunday Telegraph that
the flood assessment under way at present will lead to some areas of
Britain being sacrificed.
"The decisions we take in Suffolk and Norfolk about areas of coastline
will be about whether or not we can actually save them," the insider
said.
"There are some areas where we can build defences but there are some
areas we will have to let go. The question is which areas do we let
go?
"There are some areas we would have to build a 100-mile wall at a cost
of billions, but we can't do that. So the fact is because of sea
levels rising there will be some areas that fall into the sea over the
next 30 years."
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Harry
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