Not a moment too soon
SOS - October 2010
Autumn approaches and it will hopefully
be a busy time on Selsey’s coastline - at
Selsey
West Beach,
the works to repair defences and replace lost shingle should be starting
soon.
It’s not the ideal time of
year for coast defence work, but there’s no alternative - if the job
isn’t started, there is a chance that more of the sea wall will
collapse. If that were to happen, we probably wouldn’t get funding to
replace it, and the funding to do the planned works themselves would
probably be clawed back by central government!
The works should extend the
life of the sea wall for perhaps 10 years, protecting the homes of
hundreds of our fellow Selsey residents from erosion. There will be some
unavoidable lorry movements through Selsey - probably in late winter –
as shingle is transported to the site, but given the huge benefit of
these works to the town, it’s surely an acceptable inconvenience.
Over at Medmerry, SOS and
other organisations recently responded to the Managed Realignment Scheme
planning application (see
www.saveourselsey.org for details). This is the scheme to improve
Selsey’s flood defences by creating some 350Ha of wetland & salt marsh
on low-lying farmland to the west of the town.
In theory this will improve
the flood defence on Selsey’s western flank from its current dismal “1:1
standard” (i.e. expect a flood to breach the defences once a year) to,
initially, a cracking 1:1000 (i.e. the
defences only get breached by the sort of apocalyptic flood that comes
along once every 1000 years). However, because of anticipated sea level
rise over the next century (estimated at roughly 1m), the defence
standard will gradually reduce to 1:100, over time.
SOS called for new footpaths,
cyclepaths & bridleways to be positioned on the new inland flood banks,
and it does appear that these will be provided as part of the scheme. If
planning consent is granted, construction work will probably start in
October 2011.
Finally, some of you may have
attended last month’s public workshops on “coastal opportunities”
(publicised in last month’s Selsey Life), based around the idea of a
“Selsey Coastal Trust”. This is not an SOS project, but we were invited
to the workshops, which were really interesting and strengthened our
belief that the idea has a great deal of merit.
We all know that government
funds for Selsey’s coast defences are extremely unlikely in the future.
We’ve just had what’s probably our last shot of these funds – for the
works at East and West beach – and been told we have to think up how to
keep the defences going in the longer term, without further government
help!
The Coastal Trust is a
potential solution to this problem, so we will follow its progress over
the coming months with great interest.
Save
our Selsey