Press Release - 10th March 2008

PRESS RELEASE: SEVERE FLOODING AT SELSEY DUE TO INADEQUATE MAINTENANCE OF COASTAL DEFENCES.

The Medmerry shingle bank, maintained by the Environment Agency, was overtopped in severe, but predicted, storms today, leading to coastal flooding that affected Selsey’s roads and caravan parks. 30 people had to be evacuated in a major emergency operation and the amount of damage is likely to exceed £1m.

For years local people have been telling the Environment Agency (EA) they need to do more to protect the low-lying land behind Medmerry beach. Matters came to a head last summer, when the Agency started pulling out groynes and breastworks that help keep the shingle in place, for “health and safety” reasons.

As SOS then told the Observer, this was a short-sighted policy that would weaken and destabilise the beach, putting people and property at risk. The EA stopped pulling out further defences, but the damage had been done and none of the groynes were replaced. Sadly our prediction has been proved right. Today’s storm waves tore at the weakened beach, dragged away the shingle and then started to pour over onto the land behind.

The result was a scene of devastation. Caravans smashed and tossed around, large tracts of land flooded, and parts of Selsey not used to flooding covered with water. In the short window of opportunity to rebuild the beach, between tides, the EA’s two bulldozers were out of action. The keys for them were left in a portacabin that floated away in the flood waters, and the drivers were left without any means of starting the machines.

It’s a crazy situation. Had the groynes & breastworks been repaired, rather than removed (after having been left to deteriorate for a decade), the beach would have probably been in a state to withstand the pounding. Most of the 3.8km Medmerry beach is in good condition – the EA accepts that only 750m is vulnerable. Why didn’t they concentrate their resources on this vulnerable patch? It’s exactly here that the sea broke over, as the EA itself predicted.

There is a strong suspicion in Selsey that the EA didn’t take these measures because the more frequently the defences here are breached, the easier it is to argue that managed realignment is the “only realistic option” for this frontage. Managed realignment just happens to be the EA’s “preferred indicative option” for Medmerry.

If the EA had used the money spent on the beach wisely - by repairing defences, or slowly building a boulder revetment to armour the weaker sections - we would not have had the costly flooding we saw today. It’s not too late to change the current failed policy. We hope the EA takes this on board and starts using its funds to actively protect Selsey’s western flank, rather than let it slowly become more vulnerable to coastal flooding.

End.

10/03/08, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE