10,000 UK Properties, 114 Miles Of Road At Risk Of Destruction From Rising Seas & Coastal Erosion - No Plan In Sight

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The rubble in Devon is evidence of what a committee of MPs say is a total lack of national preparedness for how to tackle the inevitable erosion of land beneath the feet of coastal communities all over the UK. “No great master plan has slipped into place. There isn’t one,” says Dan Thomas, cabinet member for highways and transportation at Devon county council, as he contemplates the £18m cost of repairing the road, which would not even include defences. “£18m out of our whole capital budget for transport of £80m – almost 25% of that budget for a year: that is a sucker punch that the council cannot take.”

From the East Riding of Yorkshire, where the soft cliffs of boulder clay at Holderness are retreating at rates of up to 4.5 metres per year – some of the highest rates in Europe – to the north Norfolk coast, to Suffolk and down to the Isle of Wight, communities are at the forefront of an eroding coastline, the retreat accelerated by the climate crisis. More than 10,000 properties, rising to 20,000 according to some calculations, are at risk from coastal erosion in the next 80 years, as well as at least 3.7 miles (6km) of railways and 114 miles of roads – of which the Slapton Line is a recent dramatic example.

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Helen Millman, a glaciologist from Exeter University who grew up in the area, says: “Moving people away from areas like these takes decades of planning – you cannot just move people overnight. Everyone has to be warned, mortgages are 25 years long – these things need to be prepared for.” A Defra spokesperson said: “This government is determined to support coastal communities in adapting to the impacts of climate change. We have already invested more than £600m over the last two years in protecting communities from sea and tidal flooding and we have also allocated £30m for coastal communities adapting to eroding shores.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/23/uk-homes-roads-railways-sink-into-the-sea