Living on the edge: Coastal home owners being treated like outcasts

Standing on the edge of a house on a cliff on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, I am warned to step back. The cliff, like many on the British coast, is eroding and in danger of collapsing.

The house belongs to 72-year-old Malcolm Newell. He warns me that the ground under my feet could give way at any moment. He’s not exaggerating. Two years ago, his neighbor saw her £195,000 family home destroyed by a landslide. All that remains of this once impressive five bedroom property is the hull of an outbuilding and swimming pool.

What’s happening on the Isle of Sheppey offers an alarming snapshot of the future. According to research from the Tyndall Center at the University of East Anglia, some 200,000 coastal properties across the country are at risk of land erosion over the next 30 years. Victims of rising sea levels – a direct consequence of climate change.

Last month, coastal erosion in Suffolk forced a couple to vacate their £2million cliff-top holiday home in the popular village of Thorpeness after their backyard was swept away – leaving it worthless. In August, 4,000 tons of rock tumbled into the sea along a 300-metre coastline at Sidmouth in Devon.

Retired woodturner Malcolm fears his three-bedroom house and £150,000 garden could plunge into the sea at any moment. Yet he is not afraid – only furious. He is angry that the council has so far refused to fund a £1million sea wall, condemning his and 47 other houses in the village of Eastchurch to end up in the sea.

“We are treated like outcasts,” he says. “When my neighbor’s house collapsed, some jobsworths came by and told me to leave because it was too dangerous to stay.”

He adds: ‘They said I would get £6,000 to demolish my house. When I said no, they ordered me to get out. I refused – it would have left me homeless without a cent. I’m going nowhere. If the house slides off the cliff, I’ll spend my days on the beach.”

Malcolm moved to Eastchurch in 2001 due to his wife’s ill health. She died five years ago, leaving behind six children, 14 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren – many of whom still enjoy coming to the village and enjoying the sea.

Both Swale Borough Council and the Environment Agency have agreed on a ‘no active intervention’ stance when it comes to coastal defence. Locals believe a concrete barrier for the 700-foot stretch of front required to save the community would cost no more than £1 million. However, the council disagrees. It claims what it takes to spend £24 million – to protect homes, including 1,000 caravans, on a four-mile stretch of coast.

Unfortunately wooden ‘cribs’ installed in the Victorian era to halt coastal erosion have either been destroyed or stolen – not replaced.

James Bevan, CEO of the Environment Agency, says that ‘no land taken away by coastal erosion is coming back’. A £5.2 billion government plan announced two years ago to help communities in the next decade has so far set aside just £140 million to provide benefits to households at risk of coastal erosion. flood defenses inland.

With large stretches of coastline in Norfolk, Suffolk, the Yorkshire East Riding, parts of Wales, Devon and other areas of Kent under threat, funds to support coastal communities will be sparse. Coastal properties are abandoned not only by local authorities, but also by mortgage lenders and insurance companies.

The dramatic misstep in Sidmouth, Devon, earlier this year

Malcolm is one of thousands of homeowners who can’t get a mortgage on a seaside property and struggles to get home insurance every year. Flood victims whose homes and businesses are ravaged by storms are being rescued by a government-backed ‘Flood Re’ scheme.

This is intended to help half a million people living in flood risk areas obtain insurance coverage. Funded by the insurance sector, the £180 million-per-year service allows homeowners to claim damage or destruction caused by flooding, but excludes coastal erosion.

Malcolm Tarling, spokesperson for the Association of British Insurers, says: ‘If you own a property where there is a risk of storm damage, you should still be able to get insurance cover – but you’re not covered for coastal erosion.

“People who want to buy a house by the sea need to understand this.”

The stretch of shoreline that threatens Malcolm Newell’s home wasn’t expected to erode so quickly until a giant 20-foot-wide sinkhole suddenly appeared in May 2020. Locals believe that burst water pipes may have exacerbated the problem in the clay-rich coastal bed. The municipality has ordered residents not to fill the hole.

Malcolm’s experience is a clear warning to those considering a home near the coast – the vagaries of the sea are unpredictable and potentially financially disastrous.