The sea wall at north east end of the Naze is being eroded away and the sea will soon break through threatening the sewage works which serves Frinton, Walton and surrounding villages.
Environment Agency plan to let sea wall fail then build new defenses!
Yet they know building groynes work – why else have they built groynes at Holland-on-Sea, Clacton, Jaywick and Seawick?
You can clearly see tarmac and slabs from path falling onto the beach
The path up to sewage works from path behind the sea wall.
Path behind sea wall looking towards Dovercourt (roughly north west)
And looking towards the sea
The land behind sea wall is lower than the beach, so will be flooded when the sea wall is breached.
Comparing the picture above taken in November 2015 with the one below, taken in June 2015, it won’t be long before the sea breaches the wall.
The sea washes material away from cliffs at sea level, leading to collapse.
Even though the sewage works is some distance up a hill, once the sea has breached the wall it will start eroding material from the base of the hill and continue unless checked. For example by building groynes.
We have seen the how the sea erodes in Tendring over the last few decades.
At Holland Haven and Holland-on-sea the groynes were not repaired which allowed the sea to wash away the sand and cause the level of the beach to drop by at least 10 feet.
Notice how the tops of the posts are nearly at the level of the sand in the left picture but stand many feet clear of the sand in the right picture.
And the damage was even worse closer to Clacton
Ultimately the sea wall failed
And at Holland Haven the sea washed material from underneath the promenade, weakening it so in 2011 a digger actually fell through the promenade.
Piling rocks against the wall was a waste of time and money as it did nothing to stop the sea attacking the wall and promenade.
What does work is building groynes which trap a layer of dry sand in front of the wall which stops the sea from getting to the wall (or cliffs).
If this does not work why was £33million been spent on building rock groynes at Holland and Clacton?
And the ones built earlier at Jaywick and Seawick?
EA SMP2
EA have a plan which they call SMP2, Shoreline Management Plan 2 (it’s their second plan) which details how they plan to defend the coast until about 2100. Curiously for a body reponsible for sea and flood defenses EA’s plan is largely to knock down the sea defenses in a process they call managed realignment. Well knocking down sea defenses doesn’t sound to good. They used to call knocking down sea defenses managed retreat, but perhaps they realised this didn’t sound to good either.
If you turn to page 117 of SMP2 for Essex and South Suffolk you will find this
Do you like the way EA say realigments can (weasel word here) have both positive and negative impacts!
What is it that maybe positive or maybe negative
Or both at the same time?
I would have thought allowing the Naze to fall into the sea has a very negative impact
And to do so after the Walton Walks have been created is very witty.
Other Things
People still stand at the edge of the cliffs
which is insane as there is no way of telling from the cliff top how much support, if any, the ground has.
And groynes at Walton still need repairing
So government, in the form of EA, are allowing the Naze to be eroded, presumably to save money. And they plan to spend money defending the sewage works.
DUH
If you object to this policy why not email your mp, douglas@douglascarswell.com
