Residents near West Sussex beach fear losing their homes due to impact of erosion

SussexWorld

Residents near Climping beach in West Sussex fear losing their homes due to the impact of erosion.  Report by Henry Bryant (video and edit) and Sam Morton.  https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/environment/west-sussex-beach-erosion-residents-say-unsellable-dream-home-will-be-swept-away-4966294

Transcript

00:00The sea wants to erode our beach and end up the other side of the A259.

00:05We're quite helpless really, we just hope it's put off long enough for us to live here.

00:11I'm Henry, Henry Burrell and I own this plot here and we bought it as a ruin in 92

00:18and it used to be a farm for Bailiff's Court Hotel and we've restored most of it

00:27and that's where we live but unfortunately we're not going to live for much longer.

00:34According to nature we're going to get flooded, not only just flooded, we're going to get

00:39swept away by the sea. We've been flooded a few times and

00:42we can cope with that. We put a lot of our heart and soul into this and it's beautiful. I mean

00:48to us most of the time we've been here it's been paradise but unfortunately in paradise

00:52is sometimes a serpent and we've got a serpent and that's the sea and we can't be crossed with

01:03Neptune, it's life you know. The sea wants to erode our beach and end up the other side of the

01:10A259 and produce a big bay and we just hope it's put off long enough for us to live here.

01:18We're quite helpless really. Our wealth is our property and it was

01:24valued at one and a half, two million pounds a while ago and we've put it up for sale and

01:33estate agents had a lot of interest in our property and they came and had a look and

01:41spoke to the environment agency. They found that we are what they call a category three

01:46at risk property, they'll run away. So the estate agent's given our house keys back and said that

01:52we're unsaleable so in fact we can't afford another house. So we're just staying here as

01:58long as we can. It'll cost millions of pounds now to protect the beach. It could have been

02:05saved early on when they first started to erode the beach but it's much too late now.

02:14So I went to Arran District Council and said we're going to lose our home at some point

02:21because of the sea and can you put anything in place? They said oh no you've got to have lost

02:26your house first. Not a very nice prospect but we started to sell off our possessions in order to

02:36perhaps buy a second-hand camper van which is an interesting adventure when you're in the 80s.

02:44My name is Gary Love. Clinton Beach is as well you can probably see from your photographs has

02:51been destroyed, totally and utterly destroyed. The problem for Henry is that they're old, older

02:58and no one cares about them. So you go to meetings at Parish Council and everybody will say oh it's

03:04terrible, it's terrible, it's terrible. They can't sleep at night. I've got four or five listed

03:08buildings down there and they are dilapidated. So I bought it as a ruin effectively and we have

03:14been unable as you can probably tell to get any trucks there. So we spend a significant amount of

03:20time bringing vehicles backwards and forwards. My vehicles with trailers, dumpers, all sorts of

03:26to try and get the materials out there but it's impossible to do the build. We've been on it now

03:31since 2017. So it's taken all that time, seven years to not finish it. It's not finished. Nowhere near.

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