East Yorkshire and North Norfolk to get £36m to tackle coastal erosion

Two councils will be given £36m to tackle coastal erosion.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the cash would help those living by the coast "to prepare and plan".

Some of the measures include replacing damaged buildings and access roads, as well as repurposing land into wildlife habitats or temporary car parks.

The cash will be split between East Riding of Yorkshire Council and North Norfolk District Council.

Defra hopes the money will be used to "help deliver and test innovative adaptation projects" such as replacing public or community owned buildings in at-risk areas with "removable, modular or other innovative buildings".

The Environment Agency will run the scheme until March 2027.

"These two locations are already living with the challenges of coastal erosion and between them include 84% of the properties at risk of coastal erosion in England over the next 20 years," a Defra spokesperson said.

Floods Minister Rebecca Pow said: "As climate change brings more extreme weather, we must redouble our efforts to build a more resilient nation.

"We have ramped up flood and coastal erosion policies, and we will always defend our coastline where it is sustainable and sensible to do so. Where it isn't we will support communities to adapt.

Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the Environment Agency, said 9,000 kilometres of open English coast was at risk from sea flooding, erosion and landslips and by 2100, "once-a-century sea level events are set to become annual events".

"As a minimum, we need to plan for at least a metre rise of sea level rise by the end of the century."

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