SOS - November 2010
'Medmerry Scheme' Planning Application to be heard
At the end of this month the planning
application for the Medmerry managed realignment should be heard by
Chichester District Council’s planning committee.
The “Medmerry scheme” is the plan to
build new defences to protect the low-lying west of Selsey from coastal
flooding. This involves building about 7km of new inland flood banks,
starting at the western end of West Sands caravan park, sweeping nearly
3km inland, then curving back again to meet the coast next to the
Bracklesham caravan park.
Once the flood banks are built, the area
will be deliberately flooded by punching a hole (a “breach”) in the
existing shingle beach. This would allow the sea to flood into the new
area in a controlled way, and over time new salt marshes would form
there. The remaining beach would be left to itself – it’s forecast it
would gradually flatten and migrate landwards.
If planning consent is
granted, the main works should start in October 2011, and the breach
would be made in autumn 2012. Most local organisations involved as
“stakeholders” in the run-up to this scheme (including SOS) have finally
given it the “thumbs up”, but with various provisos. Our concerns have
included (a) whether the defences will work in the way the computer
models have predicted, and (b) the future maintenance of these inland
flood banks - although the Environment Agency will be “responsible” for
maintenance, this doesn’t guarantee it will have the money to do it.
This brings us back to a
recurring theme – the funding arrangements for this, and the Town’s
other sea defences (sea walls, groynes etc). Successive governments have
made it very clear that future funding for Selsey is “unlikely”, once
the current West Beach and Medmerry works are done. That was the
position even before the financial crisis.
By the time you read this the
government should have announced the cuts to departmental budgets,
including DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural affairs).
Broadly speaking, it’s DEFRA money that kept our sea defences going. We
expect the probability of getting DEFRA coastal defence money will slip
from a polite “unlikely” to a more honest “not on your Nellie”!
Hence the need to find
alternative ways to get funding - or make the money necessary - to keep
our defences maintained. Maintain them we must. If in doubt, look at the
maps (published as part of the Shoreline Management Plan) showing what
would happen to Selsey if we don’t... losing most of the Oval Field to
erosion would be the least of our problems! With this backdrop, we as a
community need to accept that exploring for alternative funding
mechanisms has become essential.
Save
our Selsey