Aerial photography of the Norfolk village of Hemsby and testimony from residents lays bare the threat posed by climate-accelerated coastal erosion to beach-side communities coastal erosion is inevitable and has existed since before Pangea split into the land masses that formed the continents we have today has suffered from an increased rate of erosion for the past 5,000 years due to its soft coastline The rate at which this occurs has only increased due to an increase in stormy weather and stormy surges as climate change affects the world’s weather systems To paint a picture of how badly Hemsby is being affected NCE has studied historical and satellite imagery of the changing coastline over the past 25 years NCE further spoke to locals and experts on coastal erosion to asses the situation. A previous resident, Kevin Jordan, who is currently appealing against the High Court’s decision in October last year to reject his legal challenge to the government’s climate adaptation plans His house was demolished on 9 December 2023 as the coast encroached on his property to a point where it was unsafe to live there “We used to call ourselves the forgotten,” he said the Environment Agency and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) updated its Flood Risk Assessments including updating figures that showed how many properties around the UK were at risk of flooding due to coastal erosion The new National Coastal Erosion Risk Management (NCERM) shows that 3,500 properties are in areas at risk of coastal erosion in the period up to 2055 This increases to about 10,100 properties in the period up to 2105 This document is used to inform the Environment Agency’s current Shoreline Management Plans (SMPs) These documents state areas that will receive funding for coastal flooding defences and other projects used to mitigate the effects of coastal erosion SMPs are not delivered and no future investment is promised to manage coastal erosion In these cases the numbers of properties in areas at risk increases significantly The total number of properties in areas at risk of coastal erosion would be nine times greater in the period up to 2055 the number of properties in areas at risk of coastal erosion from now to 2055 sits at 860 which is 25% of the total properties in areas at risk of being lost to coastal erosion in the East of England This rises to 2,760 and 27% from now to 2105 Speaking at a press briefing that NCE attended at the end of last year Environment Agency director of flood risk strategy and national adaptation Julie Foley said: “Erosion is about the loss and displacement of land on our coastline “It’s irreversible and it can be very difficult to predict due to the nature of storm surges “We already have quite a lot of coastal erosion challenges across our coastline We have some of the fastest eroding shorelines in Europe particularly places like North Norfolk and in East Riding in Yorkshire.” Where Hemsby sits in north Norfolk is seen as an erosion hotspot they are particularly in councils like East Riding of Yorkshire we see two thirds of residential properties in areas of coastal erosion risk “That’s one of the reasons why we’ve had programs of work like our coastal transition accelerator program really focusing on some parts of those geographies already in how we can support communities to plan and adapt to a changing climate.” this portion of coastline has been categorised as “managed realignment” by the Environment Agency This is defined as the “removal of part (breach) or all of existing coastal structures” by the geographic association and essentially means that the coastal erosion in Hemsby will not be calmed Save Hemsby Coastline chairman Simon Measures spoke to NCE about his thoughts about what that means for Hemsby “We are supposed to be under ‘managed realignment’ which basically as far as we look at it  is structurally doing nothing and taking no action,” he said “The only difference is protection of life With the help of Google Earth and the aerial photography of Mike Page and Luke Martin NCE has set out to visualise how drastic the coastline where Hemsby sits has changed over the past 25 years Hemsby once had a thriving tourist community but that has faded as more and more of the beach has been lost As you can see in the photo below which was taken by Page in August 2003 the beach was sizeable and extends far out from the dunes The section of Hemsby that sits right on the shoreline is known as the Marrams where the only thing that sits in between the properties and the sea now are a few half-collapsed dunes The dunes act as the only natural defence from the waves and storms as much of the beach has been swept away The section of shore in the photo slider is known as the Hemsby Gap and is referred to as an important example of how much the landscape is changing Measures said: “Our beach is dropping year on year on year the waves crashing in have got less ground to cover before they hit the dunes “This is why you’re seeing this happening [more of the coastline being lost] more and more frequently because we’re losing the sand of the beach.” there was a road that led from the Gap down to a section of properties south of where the Gap is situated “About five or six years ago that start of the road got washed away we were cut off down there for several weeks while they dug a relief road around it,” Jordan said the water is up against the bottom of dunes and of course “It was in more recent storms of last year and the year before where the road was completely wiped out all the way along.” The road used to sit where there is now rubble at the bottom left of the photo slider above “If you look down the road from where I live we had a big dune structure,” Measures said it was all 1950s concrete with bits of wire and rebar you can’t even see a lump in the sand where the dune used to be or where the road used to be “It’s completely gone and the beach is nowhere near as wide as that either now.” a number of properties on the Marrams were demolished due to their dangerous proximity to the sites of erosion all of those went in March and April of 2023,” Measures explained “The dune is in fact where their front doors are now “You can just about see where the driveways used to be and that’s your lot “If you walk down there now it's very difficult to try and work out where things used to be because all the points of references have gone.” The distance that the tide has encroached on the land can be seen in the greenery that makes up a lot of the Hemsby area It has largely been killed by the saltwater Measures explained how desperate the situation has become it will come through Winston Valley and it’ll start to pull that to pieces “Being immersed in salt water just destroys everything an incoming surge on top of a high tide will just go over that and the whole area will be dead.” Other areas of the beach have retreated right up to the grassy areas In the area shown below you can see that the dune has eroded right up to the grass “What you can see on the beach is grass which has been basically dropping off the front of the dune sliding down the dune line and stopping there,” Measures said “That’s ongoing erosion just there and you can tell how old or new the erosion is by whether the grass is dead - if it’s dead A further method locals use to study the erosion that is taking place at Hemsby is by comparing the beach line with that of the conurbation just south “That’s the start of their defenses - they’re defended “You can see the difference; it’s almost like a straight line “[The erosion] just digs in beyond it where we are because we haven’t got any.” Aside from the East of England having a soft coastline there are a number of reasons that the erosion in Hemsby is so bad the British Geological Society (BGS) studied the situation in the Norfolk village The BGS Coasts and Estuaries team assessed the Hemsby coastline by looking at historic and current coastal change BGS revealed the annual cliff recession rate of UK coastlines can vary from almost nothing up to as much as 25m in a single year if the beach is narrow and thin The report stated that property owners along non-defended coasts in north Norfolk should be aware of the direct relationship between a beach wedge (combined beach width and thickness) and the level of protection Once the beach wedge is below 10m2 per metre of beach length the protection offered by the beach is negligible and the cliff retreat is controlled by the combination of high tides and moderate energy waves BGS regional geologist Jonathan Lee said at the time: “Beaches are great natural coastal defences because they act to dissipate wave energy the erosional susceptibility of the geology is enhanced because of direct wave action on the cliffs “This occurs under both normal tidal and weather conditions and especially during high tides and storms There is unfortunately a long history of coastal erosion at Hemsby documented in a wide range of historical (and more modern) accounts.” The narrow beach creates a cinematic situation where big clumps of land can fall into the sea during heavy storms which are only becoming more and more apparent with climate change heavy waves are coming in before they reach the dunes,” Jordan said that dissipates the energy out of the waves in any storms before they can get to the dunes.” The situation where the beach is concerned is at its final tether “We’ve lost all our beach,” Jordan continued we’re down to the clay substrate on our beaches now It comes in and hits the bottom of the dunes “Every time we have a spring tide or any other high tide they’re chewing away at the bottom of the dunes whereas before they would be dissipated by that great wide expanse of beach.” Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research director and University of East Anglia professor of climate adaptation Robert Nicholls has hypothesised that Hemsby used to have a strong beach made of sand banks “There’s silts and muds which kind of wash away with all the sand,” Nicholls said It’s taken down the coast and round about Winterton just to the north of Hemsby It tends to move offshore and it moves on to these banks “These banks are probably the product of thousands of years of supply of sand from the north They’re massive and some of them even dry a little bit at low tide When the banks are shallow it causes waves to break They act as a natural breakwater for the coasts behind them “If you stand there on a very wet or a very windy day with the wind coming from the east you’d see lots of breaking water out there,” Nicholls continued what’s happened - almost certainly - is they had a bank in front of them and it’s dropped so bigger waves are coming in locally and those waves are causing things like refraction.” there is speculation that the banks could rebuild and begin to defend Hemsby again “The wave height at Hemsby has got much bigger due to these banks but it’s probably a cyclical process,” Nicholls said “Maybe in the future those banks will rebuild and the erosion will slow down.” While the erosion situation at Hemsby is grave and there is currently no funding to save it there is some hope for the residents that are losing their properties is involved in the £8M Resilient Coasts project part of the £200M Environment Agency Flood and Coast Innovation Programme This project will work with affected coastal communities in four core locations across the East Suffolk and Great Yarmouth frontage and environment of these coastal frontages to live and work with a “climate resilient coast” exploring alternatives to coastal risk management structures An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “Great Yarmouth Borough Council is the responsible risk management authority for coastal erosion at Hemsby “We know the devastating impact flooding and coastal erosion can have on communities “This is why we are working closely with Great Yarmouth Borough Council as they consider options for the management of the area We understand the challenges faced by the council and “Government Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Grant in Aid (FCERMGiA) is available to Great Yarmouth Borough Council as the Risk Management Authority (RMA) to fund or part fund flood and coastal erosion risk management schemes “To apply for funding RMAs need to submit a business case to the Environment Agency showing how the project will work that it is able to be delivered and is environmentally acceptable “We are committed to supporting coastal communities and ensuring flood and coastal erosion risk management is fit for the challenges we face now and Great Yarmouth Borough Council did not respond to NCE’s repeated attempts for comment Like what 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The UK’s water regulators and government ministers have no coherent national plan… The government should introduce a National Water Grid so water can be… which shows the difference between the… A major refurbishment of Dunball Sluice near Bridgwater has been completed This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page For best viewing experience of this website Please enter a place name in the search bar your friends and family safe at the beach with links to Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and Met Office advice Rip currents can occur on any beach but this beach has a greater risk of rips What to do if you get caught in a rip (RNLI) Tide times and heights are from Winterton-On-Sea tidal station which is 1.8 miles away. So times may be different at this beach. What does this mean? Contains ADMIRALTY® tidal data: © Crown Copyright and database right After provisionally the warmest May Day on record in the UK higher than average temperatures will subside over the weekend Environment Agency Updated: 06:30 (UTC+1) on Tue 6 May 2025 cloud will increase from off the North Sea to bring a few light showers during the day Some bright or sunny spells developing by late-afternoon Staying dry with some lengthy clear skies overnight Turning chilly with a touch of grass frost in places Largely dry with variable amounts of cloud and bright or sunny spells on Wednesday with variable amounts of cloud and bright or sunny spells throughout the period Dry across the vast majority of the UK with clear or sunny spells but also some patchy cloud Cloud will likely thicken across the far north and northwest during the weekend with some outbreaks of rain for a time There is also a small risk of some heavy showers in the far south or southwest high pressure will be dominant across the UK This will bring predominantly fine and dry weather for the majority of places Temperatures are likely to be slightly above normal for the time of year although there is a chance of some cold nights Fairly typical weather for the time of year is most likely through this period fine and dry weather is more likely to dominate although this will be interspersed with occasional spells of rain and showers with a risk of heavy rain and thunderstorms in places temperatures will most likely be near to or slightly above average Check if you already have access from your company or university NORFOLK – A seal pup was spotted loitering outside the Istanbul Delight kebab shop in Hemsby last night The wayward pup’s late-night adventure caused concern among locals as the shop is located hundreds of metres inland Marine and Wildlife Rescue was swiftly dispatched after the sighting was reported though initial attempts to locate the pup were met with confusion and they thought we were joking,” said Fran Silversmith chairman of the Great Yarmouth-based rescue centre over there next to the walrus,’ so that was helpful.” The mischievous pup was eventually found outside the Mirage amusement arcade where it appeared to be mumbling incoherently about a “Stuck Farmer.” Witnesses speculated that the seal had been out on the lash and simply got lost while looking for shelter – or perhaps “He was definitely a bit worse for wear,” Silversmith added Silversmith and a colleague managed to wrangle it onto a stretcher and carry it back to the beach Silversmith noted that while seal sightings inland are becoming more frequent due to population growth drunk seals are still a rarity—though not unheard of we’d get maybe two drunk seal calls a week Officials are urging residents to avoid approaching these seal pups you don’t want to mess with a drunk seal,” Silversmith warned and a lot less charming when they’re pissed.” Meanwhile: Illegal immigrant delivery driver ‘possibly sent by God’     We don’t spam! 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