Farmer fears sea will flood his land

But the shoreline management plan, approved by members of Arun District Council's cabinet last week, could be scuppered by a legal obligation the Environment Agency (EA) has to protect land in Climping from flooding. The plan, for which Arun is the lead authority among eight district and borough councils, is designed to assess flood and erosion risks along the south coast and identify the best way to deal with them. It offers four options for the shoreline defences on separate stretches of beach along the coast: to maintain the defences; improve them; re-align them or to do nothing. Under the plan, sea defences along the district's coastline from Ferring to Pagham will be maintained. The only exception to this is Climping's sea defences, which will be re-aligned, meaning they will be re-structured and scaled-down. Concerns were raised at the Arun cabinet meeting by Mr Baird, who owns around 400 acres of land in the area, all of which is below sea level at high tide. Mr Baird told the cabinet he had tried in vain for two years to hold a meeting with the EA to discuss the plan and the legal agreement he has with them to protect his land from flooding. Speaking after the meeting, Mr Baird said: "Our legal agreement with the EA states it's their duty to protect the inland from flooding. "The only way to do that is to maintain the groynes, keep the shingle there and stop the water from coming in." Mr Baird said the EA's flood plain map clearly showed that, should the sea breach the defences at Climping, the A259 would be cut off twice a day at high tide. He also said there was an increased risk of flooding further up the Arun valley if shingle from Climping beach was left to wash away and clog up the River Arun. "It's short-sighted," he said. "They should be looking to see what the impact will be on tourism and leisure in Littlehampton and Bognor. "Sea levels are rising and weather patterns are changing. We don't know how high the sea will get in the future." Speaking after the meeting, Roger Spencer, principal engineer for Arun, said re-alignment carried no increased risk of flooding and the maximum movement of the beach was expected to be only about 10 metres over the next 20 or so years, depending on climate change. A spokeswoman for the EA, Lucy Harding, told the Gazette: "Managed re-alignment allows the retreat of the shoreline inland with management to control or limit that movement. "We are currently waiting for a coastal defence strategy, which is being led by Arun District Council, which will outline exactly how the managed realignment will be done, what maintenance is needed, how far the bank is re-aligned and when."