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Campaign for Coastal Defence

Let's talk about money!

from Selsey Life. May 2010

With no really big tides due until September, and the warm weather approaching, we are hopefully entering a period of summer calm on the seafront. On the financial front though, things are likely to be more unsettled. By the time you read this the election will probably have taken place, and whatever government is in place will have to start dealing with the public finances.

What relevance does this have to our coast defences? Well, quite a lot. Currently, most coastal defence is paid for out of government funding, and in places where the government won’t allocate money, the coastline is often left to erode. At Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast, many houses have fallen into the sea as the cliffs erode inland, leaving their owners homeless and financially ruined.

In many ways Selsey is really lucky. At Happisburgh the official coastal policy is “no active intervention” which means that, even if the government had plenty of money, it wouldn’t spend any to maintain their coast defences. At Selsey (except for Medmerry), the coastal policy which we fought for and gained is “hold the line – sustain”. This means that if the government did have money to spend here, it would do so (even raising the defences over time, in line with sea level rises).

This brings us back to the public finances. Before the current crisis, government funding for Selsey’s defences was classed as “unlikely”. Even so, some money was obtained or has been earmarked for us, but things will clearly get much, much tighter.

As ever though, Selsey is a resilient place and our luck hasn’t run out.  Almost uniquely, we will benefit from a £15m private sector coastal defence scheme planned for the Medmerry frontage, paid for by Bunn Leisure. This would not just protect the caravan parks: it will defend land and many private homes along Selsey’s western boundary, and be linked in with the £12m publicly-funded realignment scheme at Medmerry (saving the public purse many millions in the process).

These £27m projects at Medmerry represent an investment in Selsey’s future, which should boost the case for continued public and private investment in our town’s urban seafront (which needs £30m invested over the next 20 years). Our challenge is to remain optimistic and work together to keep this momentum going, despite the tough funding climate.