Dawlish News

SEASIDE areas across the Westcountry will have to abandoned within two or three generations because the cost of protecting them from coastal erosion is too high, the new chief of the Environment Agency has warned.
The sea will reclaim vast stretches of the UK's coastline, with some vulnerable sections of the coast in this region evacuated and left to the mercy of the sea, according to Lord Smith of Finsbury.
His doom-laden predictions warn the Government and local councils face tough choices over which areas of coast to defend and which to leave to the water.
The Environment Agency in the Westcountry says places like Slapton Sands and Dawlish Warren in South Devon, Porlock in West Somerset, sections of the South West Coast Path and the Jurassic Coast all face chronic erosion problems.
Lord Smith said: "This is the most difficult issue we are going to face as an agency. We know the sea is eating away at the coast in quite a number of places, primarily – but not totally exclusively – on the east and south coasts."

Although coastal erosion occurs naturally, some environmental experts have predicted changing weather patterns will lead to seas levels rising by as much as four metres, causing irreparable damage to coastal defences, buildings and roads.
The agency is drawing up plans to decide which areas should be given priority status based on predictions about where coastal erosion will cause most damage in the next five, 25, 50 and 100 years.