NORFOLK REALIGNMENT CASE STUDY
A new story for March / April 2008
Click to enlarge. Picture by A. Parkinson
The plan is to allow the sea to reclaim an area of Norfolk, to the east of the county, and which includes 6 villages, made up of around 600 households and over 6500 hectares of land. The Environment Agency say that their new policies are to prioritise protection, and that although they will protect the area for at least the next 50 years, they can't guarantee that they will still be protecting it and "holding the line" at the end of the century.
Sea level rise at the same time as isostatic rebound / adjustment is causing the south of England to sink at around 10cm per century.
Amounts of sea level rise that are predicted vary from 30cm to 1.5m depending on which source you use. What seems to be the more likely figure ?
Stakeholders
Can you think of any others ??
Issues that are related to this
Interestingly, it has often been said of schemes like this that it is "only farmland", but the Independent' had the headline "Fields of Gold" on the 17th of April. Farmland has been going up in price
Newspaper links
Main local newspaper for the region is the Eastern Daily Press.
Worth checking the website each day...
Broads project unacceptable: story from 17th April
Telegraph articles on the project too (with links to more)
Articles in the YARMOUTH MERCURY
Weblinks
Malcolm Kerbey and co's COASTAL CONCERN ACTION GROUP site at Happisburgh
Andrew Stacey's site has some excellent images from a recent visit to the village.
http://www.stacey.peak-media.co.uk/Happisburgh/HappisburghFeb2008/HappisburghFeb2008.htm - the latest gallery here, but links to the earlier visits: a splendid set of photos by a splendid fellow....
Check out the CLIFFHANGER video on Green TV, which I have mentioned elsewhere on the site.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/7338079.stm - Villagers fight plan article on BBC NEWS
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/03/31/dl3102.xml - some opinions on the plan by Telegraph website visitors
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/31/easwamp131.xml - Telegraph article
I also have some news footage from Look East: it's probably making an effort to catch the local news magazine programmes each evening if possible.
The clip featuring the local MP is useful. Norman Lamb has spoken out against the proposal and suggested that blight may already be affecting properties.
An excellent Guardian article also on the 17th of April: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/17/flooding.climatechange
Visited the area in April 2008 to take some pictures of some of the threatened area. They are on my FLICKR page.