Authorities facing 'difficult decisions' over coastline

UK authorities must accept the fact that difficult decisions will need to be taken in the fight against coastal erosion, the National Trust has said.

Research commissioned by the National Trust found that many significant sites are in danger of being eroded or flooded, with the charity now advising that a trade-off system would have to be put in place among planners and local officials.

The south-east coastline will erode far faster than the western shores of the UK, National Trust coast risk assessment manager Adrian Woodhall added.

"We're currently in the process of revising the shoreline management plan that was written in the 1990s and this is a process by which local communities and government agencies can decide what is needed to protect certain areas of the coast," Mr Woodhall commented.

"The environment agencies and local authority have a finite amount of money and they know that fulfilling their responsibility requires much more than this.

"They will have to go back to the local community and actually start working out what's going to be let go and what's going to be saved," he concluded.


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