Coastal residents pay £270k for their own defences

Some hope has been restored in a Suffolk village that is being lost to coastal erosion after temporary defences arrived.

Thorpeness, which has been a holiday hotspot for more than a century, has seen 11 homes torn down recently due to erosion.

Several residents have paid for new rock bags themselves, which cost about £270,000, with East Suffolk Council looking to potentially add more.

Maureen Jones, chair of the Aldringham-cum-Thorpe Parish Council, said the new defences "really lift the mood" in the village.

"We are really pleased that this has now happened because people just couldn't see anything being done to protect our coastline," she said.

"Now they will start to see these rock bags put on the beach, and it will really lift the mood in Thorpeness."

Initially, experts thought the erosion would improve, but bad weather at the start of the year saw it worsen, leading to more homes having to be torn down.

Some residents previously attempted to pay for other defences, but in one instance, an application was turned down by East Suffolk Council as it said they had not been planned properly.

East Suffolk Council will also meet later to decide whether it spends £300,000 on extending rock bags further north to cover up to 24 properties on Old Homes Road.

In January, it was also announced the government was awarding £18m of funding to help communities in Suffolk, as well as Norfolk and East Riding, facing erosion.

Jones said it was "heartbreaking" to think about losing more homes in the village, and she said residents needed reassurance.

"The owners of the properties would like to do some defences themselves with the permission of East Suffolk Coastal Management team, and they are looking at doing this following on from the defences that are being done now," she continued.

She added: "The temporary defences will be the beginning, but there definitely has to be some permanent defences for the future."

Dennis Skinner, a Thorpeness resident and a member of Thorpeness Community Interest Company, which helped raise the money for the bags, said it was an important day.

"The last year, and particularly the last few months, has been dreadful for a number of property owners on North End Avenue who have seen their houses demolished.

"We believe these rock bags will provide some stabilisation for the coastline and enable us to buy a bit of time so we can come up with a much more detailed plan to save Thorpeness."

Mark Packard, East Suffolk Council's cabinet member for planning and coastal management, congratulated the residents "for taking actions for themselves".

"It is a way of preserving the coastline as much as we can for two to five years while we think of other ways of sorting this situation out," he said.

He added: "We're not quite sure where the erosion will finish, but it will finish soon, we hope, and what we need now is a beach to form, and that will help the situation."

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