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Coastal Erosion

More effort is needed to protect our coastal communities

I refer to Mike Franklin’s letter regarding saving our coastline and land masses (NCE, March). It is quite shocking and appalling to see homes being sacrificed to the sea along the coastline at Hemsby in East Anglia, by local and central governments choosing to ignore the loss of property and land mass along our coast.

With a little forethought and planning and coastal protection, homes can be saved.

Further down the same coast in 1999/2000, in its infinite wisdom, Sheringham District Council set about with a positive plan to refurbish its decaying sea wall and save the town from impending disaster. I was project director on the Sheringham Sea Wall scheme.

The decaying steel sheet-piled sea wall was retrofitted with a reinforced concrete outer skin and the whole extended further up and down the coastline with a wave wall constructed at the lower levels. In addition, very large granite rock revetments were installed in front of the new construction to prevent further erosion of the coastline.

The net result was the protection of property and the town of Sheringham from destruction.

Allowing the coastline to simply be ravaged by the sea with loss of property over the years is a travesty and local and central government must share the blame. They need to be urged to change their whole attitude to protecting our valuable coastline and to take positive measures to save our coastline up and down this country of ours.

Mario Donnetti (F), mariodonnetti@yahoo.com

The Editor, New Civil Engineer,
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