David Eagle’s plan to save the Naze is described in 18 August 2016 Clacton & Frinton Gazette. It prompted me to have another look.
David has organised a meeting 7-8:30pm Wednesday 24 August at Columbine Centre to discuss saving the Naze.
I applaud David for taking action, in fact he appears to be the only person taking action. Though Councillor Nick Turner, who used to hold the environment brief at TDC, is working at political level. Nick was instrumental in delivering the new sea defenses and beach at Holland and Clacton.
I do not believe David’s solution, piling rocks in front of the sea wall, will work in the long term. There are 2 workable solutions as far as I know
Either build groynes so there is a bank of dry sand in front of the wall which stops the sea from being able to reach the wall.
Or build a barrier like Crag Walk
My preference would be for groynes. It is really frustrating that not only is it known how to stop the erosion but it has been successfully done in Tendring including at Sunny Point which is at the Naze!
naze cliffs fall sea even though known stop
new beach for clacton, naze and seawick falling into sea
Back To The Naze
This photo was taken on 22 Aug 2016
November 2015
January 2013
Clearly the sea is rapidly eroding the sea wall and will soon break through, and when it does the sea will proceed to erode the land behind the sea wall threatening the sewage works. More detail sea continues to erode wall and cliffs at walton on the naze dec 2015
The 15 January 2016 edition of Gazette put some of the pictures on the front page. Dave Lambert, who wrote the story, asked the Environment Agency for a response. EA seemed to distance themselves from any responsibility which I describe here a big thankyou to dave lambert and frinton-clacton gazette
The pipe which was sticking out of the cliff in November 2015 now seems to be lying on the beach.
The sea has eroded under the sea wall. To the left you can see some of the rocks which are David’s solution.
Rocks were piled against the sea wall in Holland-on-Sea. But the sea washed sand out from underneath the rocks and the level of the rocks fell. You can see they almost all covered in weed.
A promenade may look solid but the sea can wash material from underneath, fatally weakening it.
Groynes with a bank of dry sand to stop the sea getting at the sea wall in Seawick
Jaywick
Clacton
If you turn to page 132 of SMP2 for Essex and South Suffolk you will find this
As far as I can make out this means EA plan to let existing sea wall fail then build new defenses. This makes no sense to me.
EA using the same failed strategy at Seawick (putting rocks against sea wall), after abandoning this idea in favor of groynes at Clacton and Holland.
Perhaps I’m wrong and piling rocks against sea wall will stop erosion. In which case why was £36million spent removing rocks against sea wall in Clacton and Holland, then building groynes?
EA SMP2 clearly states there will be no active intervention to stop erosion at Naze Cliffs, pages 126-130 of SMP2 for Essex and South Suffolk
10
Finally EA’s policy seems to be based on fears of accelerating rise in sea levels which would make sea defenses to expensive to maintain.
The sea level data for Felixstowe from 1980 to 2011 held by PSMSL show no sea level rise at all!
If just a tiny fraction of the money spent on local offshore windfarms (about £300 million for Gunfleet sands and £1.4 billion for the ones further out) we could have proper sea defenses for all of Tendring (principally Naze and Seawick).
