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Campaign for Coastal Defence

Coastal Communities at Risk Conference

SOS was delighted to participate in a Conference of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coastal Affairs. Roland O’Brien was invited to make a presentation to the conference, attended by DEFRA Minister Huw Irranca-Davies MP and MPs from all parties, who have an interest in coast defence.

Roland comments:

“I was invited because the organisers knew that through the two local groups I belong to - SOS, and MPSG (I co-chair this with our MP, Andrew Tyrie) – I’ve long been arguing for a different approach to government policy on coastal defence.

I was able to present the case to an audience of top decision-makers. They included the DEFRA Minister and officials from departments and agencies that deal with coastal affairs. Also present were MPs from different coastal areas around England (Norfolk, East Yorkshire etc), including Chichester’s Andrew Tyrie.

My brief was to quickly describe the issues at Selsey, then make just 3 suggestions to the Minister on how the Government could help. ”

The 3 suggestions Roland made were:

1. Government should ensure that local communities have a real say in what happens to them, by making the decision-making process less top-down and more inclusive. Involving grass-roots organisations will improve decision-making, not hinder it.

2. People and jobs should not take second place to “the environment”. The Government has given up leadership in this area to unelected quangos such as Natural England (NE). This means policies that can cause enormous harm are made by organisations that have absolutely no remit to think about people or the economy. One result: householders stopped from defending their homes (at their own expense) from erosion, because NE like to see coastal cliffs erode naturally.

3. Coastal Communities need a planning framework that promotes positive local solutions, to local problems. We are told we are worth defending, but must find our own solution, to secure our future. We’re up for the challenge, but need a planning regime which encourages regeneration of coastal areas, so we can promote the sort of low-key, high-value environmental tourism and fisheries projects that we think could secure Selsey’s future.

There were two other similar presentations, from Brigitte Bass (Defend our Coast, East Sussex) and Malcolm Kerby (Coastal Concern Action Group, Norfolk). A number of further speakers addressed the conference, including Graham Stuart MP, Clive Stockton (Local Government Association Coastal Interest Group), and DEFRA consultants Scott Wilson.

In the question & answer session, Fred Robertson (District Councillor for Selsey South) bought up the question of food security. If the Government continues to flood agricultural land, we increasingly become dependent on imported food, yet this isn’t taken into account when determining environmental policy. Graham Stuart MP acknowledged that food security was an issue the Government should take into consideration.

SOS facilitated Fred & Roland’s travel up to London for this conference, because it believes that events like this are a very effective way of lobbying government for change.