Coastal Cliff Erosion: Walton-on-the-Naze

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Coastal Cliff Erosion: Walton-on-the-Naze - Undefended Heritage

Coastal Erosion - Walton-on-the-Naze - East Coast of England - Background Information

~ Undefended Heritage ~

The Naze Cliffs and the Power of the Sea

HOMEPAGE

TOWNSITE

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The Naze Protection Society's HERITAGE PROJECT | APPEAL | CLIFF VIDEO - by a local expert

Unprotected cliffs: Tendring District Council has overall responsibility for cliff protection. On the map opposite, this is indicated by the red line. The 'crossed' line indicates unprotected cliffs. [The yellow line shows where the Environment Agency (EA) are responsible for flood defence]. The picture below illustrates a typical section of unprotected cliff face.

click on the map for the full council report:

Spring 2005: The effects of surface water on already weakened cliff material can be seen in the picture above. The underlying clay is impervious to the water trapped above it. Here, a rivulet has formed, gushing down the remains of the cliff face washing more material onto the beach to be carried away on the next tide - for there are no beach groynes here to stabilise the sand and pebbles. A small triple slumping can be seen on the left hand side of the picture.

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The Neglect...

The remains of the old beach groynes

Lying at about 150 metres offshore of the foot of the present line of cliffs, the remains of the old beach groynes can sometimes be seen at low water surrounded by the London Clay of the wave-cut platform that is now all that remains of the once sandy beach that lay here in the 1930's... Since these strategic defences have neither been rebuilt nor replaced, the current cliff erosion rate has been allowed to accelerate alarmingly in recent decades.

Mud Slide... The picture above shows the catastrophic effects of a mud slide - the cliff face is literally dissolving into a semi-liquid mass on an unprotected beach!

(For more pictures from this 2001 Open University field trip - click on image.)

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The

Ultimate

Irony:

"Army chief condemns

Broads flood plan"

click for story:

The Irony:

The sea defences necessary to protect the vulnerable coastline of the Naze have been sadly neglected through years of bureaucratic frustration. Rebuilding them will cost a lot of money - but costs are relative...

This year, for instance, Britain will spend thirty billion pounds (�30,000,000,000) on the national defence budget that protects the wellfare of the people of this country.

The irony is, that while this expenditure takes place, parts of the country's coastline will be lost as the more vulnerable areas are systematically and permanently destroyed by constant attacks on ageing defences from the destructive forces of the sea.

Just one hundredth of one per cent of defence spending - about three million pounds - is what it would take to rebuild the Naze cliff defences - the beach groynes and sea walls that once defended the fragile beauty of this vanishing coastline.