The new beach at Holland Haven is open now new groynes have been built. I went to have a look and found a surprise. Sea level rise in next 100 years?
There’s now a beach at Holland Haven!
With plenty of dry sand in front of the sea wall.
And the sand almost reaches the prom – who needs steps?
But the groynes don’t reach the sea wall, I counted a gap of 15 paces.
There are 15 more paces to the high water mark and 59 to the sea at round about low tide.
So 89 paces in all. Noticeably more than the 55 paces I found with old groynes in April 2012. Still a bit less than 90-100 paces at Walton and quite a bit less than the 120 paces at Frinton.
The groynes are spaced about 200 meters apart which leads to the sea coming a significant distance closer to the sea wall in the middle of the groynes.
Round about low tide some of the shorter northern branch of the Y was in the sea
But almost all the longer southern branch was out of the sea
It seemed to me the groynes might be covered by the sea at high water so I went back close to high tide on 9 March 2015 when high tide was estimated to be 4.3meters.
And it looks like I was wrong as the groynes are still clearly out of the sea.
But not nearly as much as the large rock groyne at Walton (groyne 84).
High tide on 21 March is estimated to be 4.9meters – about 2 feet higher than on 9 March, which I guess will cover the groynes. If I’m free I’ll go back and take more photos, perhaps someone else can take photos as well just in case I’m not free.
Photos of super tide on 22 March covering groynes here.
So What’s The Surprise?
The new groynes at Holland are largely paid for my Environment Agency.
The groynes and new beach are supposed to last for 100 years.
EA follow DEFRA’s guidance of sea level rise for the next century which indicates sea levels are due to rise by between 0.37 and 0.53 meters (14 to 21 inches).
So the highest high tides could be 4 feet higher than those shown in pictures I took on 9 March 2015, which would clearly cover the groynes.
The locations in Tendring where the sea covered the groynes at high tide are those were the sea has washed away the sand the most. The most that is apart from the Naze and south of Seawick where there aren’t any groynes at all!
So either EA are not expecting that much sea level rise, or they don’t expect the groynes to keep the beach and seawall safe for 100 years.
