Hemsby

All of which belongs to somebody. The beach between high and low water belongs to The Crown. The beach above high water belongs to either a landowner or the local Council and removing sand or pebbles from below low water requires a dredging licence.

I wouldn't be surprised if that needed an extraction licence, but ICBA to check.

I would expect any such works to require planning permission and / or permission from the Environment Agency. They would probably also need to comply with the government coastal defence design and practice guide.

Well, yes, I think that if this has just started to happen, then there has to be a reason for it, maybe some change in the coastline locally. I fear that it would not really be feasible to protect this village from the eventual doom. Sad to say, bad choice of land in the first place. Brian

There are already plans:

Isolated concrete defences would probably have the surrounding sand washed away and just get gradually buried.

If it was cheap and easy it would (probably) already have been done.

Cheers

Dave R

First you have to design a defense that works.

Naive attempts just result in the sea undermining your attempt and washing away the supports to it. So first, you have to understand just how badly the ocean wants to "re-form" the shoreline. There can be pretty powerful currents across the face of a beach area, powerful enough to knock you off your feet.

The first level of naivety, is "dredge and pile". That lasts for about two years if you're lucky, and then it would have to be done again.

Building a fortress, right on top of sand, is useless. Sinking piles to give the fortress a footing, well, would you want to build a pile wall 150 feet deep ? What would that cost ?

These have been used, but I don't know how the longevity of these compares, to the "fortress" concept. These are a kind of "energy dissipation structure", for calming the water. I suppose when these wear out, you can put down more of them.

Summary: Research is the first step. You only get so many chances to fix this, as people hate it if you come back looking for money a second time. That's what happens to the "dredge and pile" people -- nobody will fund throwaway efforts like that.

Paul

The whole of the coastline in question is just a mixture of mud and sand most of the way round the coast of East Anglia. In historical times, (presumably more than 6k years ago), when England still had a land bridge to France, the mouth of the Rhine was much further north and its delta deposited all this useless s*it that is now eroding. And it's going at quite a rate. There's at least one village, the remains of which are now a mile offshore. Roads that used to go somewhere now stop at a cliff, with perhaps 30 to 40 feet down to the beach. These cliffs erode easily and risk being overtopped in a winter storm in the North Sea, with the right tides, and a northerly wind piling the sea up.

The idea of being able to prevent that strikes me as a bit naive, sad though it may be for those living there.

What is the underlying geology? If sands and gravel down 50m then defences have to go down 50m or the sea will surely undermine any defences just laid on sand and gravel.

The first attempt in my area was to build tall sea walls above the beaches but after a few decades or so the sea started eroding these defences, despite being patched up piecemeal.

The solution adopted was to re-profile the beaches with a gentle slope, with the slope ending at the top of the sea walls. For many months a dredger collected sand/shingle from elsewhere around the coast and it was pumped ashore where it was bulldozed into place.

Old method the sea hit the sea wall. New method the sea at high tide normally only comes up to around 50 metres of the sea wall.

There are still some problems. High winds will now transport the sand up the gentle beach slope and over the old wall depositing the sand on the road that runs along the sea-front. In one place the water can come under these sea defences and flood the road where it is a lot lower than the water at high tide.

In a place in suffolk whose name I will not reveal the top of the cliff s a farm field that is planted with crops. Each year the acreage diminishes. In the sea are old tree trunks a few tens of meters out in the sea where the old wooded cliff top used to be. Vegetation only stabilises the top foot or so.

Yes. It would in fact be cheaper to build new houses somewhere else than stop these being washed away.

Its alluvial deposits from either the ice age terminal moraine or the old Rhine. Or both. It goes down meters. It isn't even sandstone. Its just piled up sand. You can dig it with a spade.

If it is where I am thinking, there was a cliff edge footpath in the late 1950's and 2 concrete shelters. My wife's uncle was in charge of a ww2 coastal anti-aircraft battery a bit further along. There is a novel written about living in the *Easternmost house*

Or buy another BIBBY Stockholm and moor that off "The Marams"

Yup.