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From Selsey Life: The future is in our hands
March 2010
We’ve talked a lot about the coastal polices we have (or, strictly speaking, are about to get) at Selsey. These are the policies in the local Coast Defence Strategy or CDS (the plan whose initial draft suggested letting Selsey Bill erode away, leading to several years of intense local pressure to get it changed, and the formation of SOS).
The CDS is a detailed plan. It looks at relatively short sections of sea front (for example, urban Selsey - from East Beach to West Beach), very closely. Usually these detailed plans slot into broader plans, called Shoreline Management Plans (SMPs), which cover a much wider area of coastline. In theory these SMPs are done first, but for us here in Selsey, it’s happened the other way around.
The North Solent SMP covers the coastline from Selsey’s coastguard station westwards, all the way to Hurst Spit (at the other end of the Solent). It was published on 1st February in its consultation version – anybody can comment on it, up to 23rd April. You can see it (and comment) on www.northsolentsmp.co.uk . Quite sensibly, for the Selsey area its stated intention is to follow the policies in our Coast Defence Strategy.
These policies are also broadly reflected in the adjoining Selsey Bill to Beachy Head SMP. This is not being consulted upon - it was prepared several years ago and its policies are likely to have been finally approved by the time this goes to press.
For Selsey town this means a “policy” of Hold the Line, but this is simply what politicians call an “aspiration”. It takes money to Hold the Line (i.e. maintain our coast defences), and the government position is that for us in Selsey (and many small communities like us), government funding is “unlikely”. Even so, the District Council has had some success in getting government money, but with the collapse of the public finances we cannot put all our hope in these valiant efforts. The challenge is great: Selsey is estimated to need £30m in the next 20 years to keep its coast defences going.
Is it really necessary? Figure it out for yourself by downloading the erosion & flood map for Selsey from Appendix C (Annex C5.2) of the North Solent SMP, where you’ll see the comparison between Selsey with, and without, its coast defences maintained. Within 10yrs, our most vulnerable sea walls would offer no further protection from erosion.
The future is, though, in our hands. By recognising there is a problem and acting together as a community, we can resolve it. There’s no great technical difficulty in maintaining coast defences for the foreseeable future. The challenge lies in funding these works and, at the same time, ensuring that local and national policies make it easier for people to defend their communities, rather than strangling such efforts with red tape. Communities like Selsey, with a positive attitude and a “hold the line” policy, just want to get on with it!