Draft Coast Defence Strategy

We’ll be issuing a detailed commentary soon when we’ve had an opportunity to look at the full background documents to the CDS.

Meanwhile, here are our initial comments, just on Selsey’s own frontages, based on the summary pamphlet (“Planning for the Future”):

• This was released on 29th May.
• It contains revised proposals for the coastline from Pagham to East Head
• We have 12 weeks to let the EA know what we think.
• It doesn’t say who will pay for most of these proposals – just that the Government won’t.

Selsey Town – East Beach, The Bill, West Beach

• These are now counted as one “frontage”, and the policy for all of them is “hold the line”, “sustaining” the defences (i.e. raising them, as sea level rises). This is what we were calling for.
• However, there isn’t likely to be Government funding. The policy will cost £31m over the next 20 years (and a total of £111m over 100 years).

We say: if this cost falls on Selsey residents, that’s about £6,800 per household spread over the next 20 years. We want to know exactly how the costs have been calculated, and have a better idea of who’s going to pay. “He who pays the Piper calls the tune” – whoever ends up paying should have a significant say in how defences are managed.

Medmerry

• The proposal is “managed realignment” (MR) – flooding about 500 acres of land, cutting right through the caravan park (unless Bunn Leisure build their own defences there), and turning the area into a salt marsh.
• Around the edges there would be earth banks to stop the sea going any further. It would cost £10m to flood the area, and a further £6m to make the salt marsh, but the Government would probably pay.

We say:

• We are not convinced this is the best policy.
• Unless Bunn Leisure build their defences, houses will be lost. There is no compensation for the owners.
• The new “Medmerry Harbour” would be on Selsey’s exposed western side. The waves would soon erode any new salt marsh and be lapping against the earth banks – about a mile inland from the current shoreline! The EA has confirmed it won’t guarantee to maintain these new defences, which is hardly a vote of confidence. We’d be left to carry the can.
• If the EA builds earth defences they must be prepared to maintain them, and to strengthen them with rock, to withstand the sea in years to come.
• The hidden agenda is that Medmerry is wanted for salt marsh, come what may. European rules are forcing the authorities to make new salt marsh in the Solent, to compensate for losses caused by protecting Southampton & Portsmouth. Medmerry has been singled out since 2003 as the place to do it.
• The government’s method of “appraising” whether it is worthwhile to protect the coast ignores the social and economic costs. The caravan parks help sustain Selsey (they employ nearly 300 full time staff and add £50m pa to the District economy). None of this counts in the economic appraisal – the government’s view is that if these parks closed, others would open somewhere else in the UK so although Selsey could become an economic backwater, the country as a whole wouldn’t suffer. By this logic you could pick off every small coastal community in the UK, one by one, which is what the Government seems to be doing.
• The environmental “benefits” of flooding Medmerry are overstated. The existing SSSI grazing marsh is rarer than the salt marsh which will replace it. The salt marsh will be short lived because of erosion. The possibility of making a cycle track, footpath & emergency vehicle access route from Selsey to Bracklesham (along the line of the existing beach) will be lost.

What alternative solutions are there?

• We’ve suggested an offshore reef, or holding the line. Here’s a new one. The EA is applying a brand new policy called “adaptive management” at Church Norton and at East Head – taking a flexible approach by keeping things much as they are, but including secondary defences and monitoring the situation with local people via a rolling 5 year plan.
• It could apply “adaptive management” at Medmerry, too. For example, this could mean holding the line for the next 20-30 years by recycling shingle that moves along the beach, supplemented with boulder protection along the 800m section that is most vulnerable, and secondary earthwork defences inland “just in case”. A cycle track, footpath and emergency vehicle access route could be included in this scenario.

We’ll comment in more detail when we have had a chance to examine the hundreds of pages of detailed background documents to the CDS.

Meanwhile, we urge you to get hold of a copy of the summary pamphlet “planning for the future” (available at local libraries, by phoning the EA on 08708 506 506, also check http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/yourenv/consultations for details).