‘Erosion has made my house worthless, but I’m happy to die here’

Despite the looming collapse of his home into the sea, Malcom Newell has no intention of moving out – Daniel Jones

On one the fastest eroding stretches of coastline in Europe, it’s inevitable that Malcolm Newell’s house will fall victim to erosion.

The 74-year-old’s home on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, is now just 20 metres from the crumbling cliff edge which has receded almost 300 metres since he moved there in 2001.

His house has plummeted in value in recent years, and it is now essentially worthless due to its impending fate.

Newell’s property lies one of the fastest eroding stretches of coastline in Europe – Daniel Jones

But despite the looming collapse into the sea, Newell has no intention of moving. “People will not buy my property,” he says. “Maybe someone will chuck £10,000 at it, but it essentially has no value.

“I don’t want to move though. I can see the sea, Southend pier and a panoramic view right the way round up to the Essex coast. Most other people live [between] four walls with no view, nothing. This is why I moved here – I breathe in clear air all of the time.

“People say ‘oh I wouldn’t move there and be by the edge’, but if the cliff goes, I go with it. This is my property – wherever it goes, I go. If it ends down at the bottom of the cliff, I’ll go and build another house down there as it’s my land, I own it. I will fight that to hell and back.

“I paid cash for it when I moved here and I don’t see why I should leave. I want to stay here until it’s my time to leave the planet.”

Newell’s village of Eastchurch is one of 21 settlements in England where, due to coastal erosion, more than half a billion pounds will be wiped off the value of its residential property by 2100, according to a survey from One Home using government data.

A separate report by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs found that property values drop by 10pc to 25pc once the risks of erosion become known. But for those living in danger zones, predominantly on the east coast where there is softer rock, the impact can be huge.

Residents living on The Marrams in Hemsby, on the frangible Norfolk coastline, have been forced from their homes after 12 properties were condemned and demolished last year alone due to safety concerns. When it comes to demolishing a property, residents can typically secure a grant of £6,000 from their local authority, but have to foot the rest of the bill.

Those who remain face the threat of financial ruin, due to a lack of willing buyers coming forward – and the prospect of becoming homeless. One local estimates homes by the seafront doomed to collapse in the coming years will only fetch around £20,000, against an average house price of £206,000 in the Great Yarmouth borough.

Last year alone saw the demolition of 12 properties hit by erosion in Hemsby, Norfolk – Joe Giddens/PA

Georgia Galloway, from brokerage firm Finbri, says those at risk are “highly undesirable”.

“Those closer to the edge will come heavily discounted, for obvious reasons, which will reduce the further inland you get”, she added.

One resident who has already lost his Hemsby home is retired marine engineer Kevin Jordan, who is suing the Government. The 70-year-old claims that his human rights were violated by a failure to protect his property, after his chalet was pulled down by the council due to the land eroding at seven times the predicted rate in the 14 years that he lived there.

The chances of his groundbreaking case succeeding have been boosted by a recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that governments have a duty to protect people from climate change.

After losing his home to erosion, Mr Jordan is suing the Government for violating his human rights – Tony Buckingham

A hundred miles further south and Newell is continuing his long campaign, calling on Swale Borough Council to bolster sea defences on the beach at Eastchurch.

“When I moved here I was told by an inspector I’d have 50 to 70 years left before it was at risk,” he says. “There was a road, a house and a bank between my property and the coastline but there’s nothing now. The bulk of the land has gone in the past few years. We need something done urgently.”

Newell, who wants groynes to be installed on the beach below his house, took defence planning into his own hands in 2020 when he and other residents deposited waste soil on the side of the crumbling cliff, which is a Site of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSI), before being ordered to stop by the council.

‘An honest conversation needs to be had’

By the end of the century, experts predict global sea levels could rise by up to 1.6 metres in the worst case scenario.

But while the melting ice caps and global warming are key factors accelerating erosion, low-lying areas are seemingly fighting a losing battle due to the slow tilt of the land and underlying tectonic plate movement that has been ongoing since the Ice Age.

“In the south of England the land is sinking by about one millimetre a year while in Scotland the land is going up,” says Jim Hall, professor of climate and environmental risks at the University of Oxford. “There’s nothing you can do about that and it is nature taking its course.

“Usually, cliff collapses come during or after big storms, or after a period of heavy rainfall saturating the ground. In the long term though, the process is being driven by rising sea levels, and we know that is getting faster.”

The Government is midway through investing £5.2bn in a new six-year flood and coastal defence investment programme in England from for 2021 to 2027. Prior to that, £2.6bn was spent between 2015 and 2021, yet only 6pc of that was of “benefit to households at risk of coastal erosion” as the majority of money went on inland flood defence projects.

“Any protection is temporary really, as you have to come back 40 or 50 years later to make coastal protections bigger and better,” Prof Hall adds.

“The question is an economical one. Money will be found to protect well-populated places, but where you have small settlements and isolated homes, it’s very difficult to make an economic case to protect a couple of homes as this costs millions.

“I think an honest conversation needs to be had to make sure people understand what’s going on when they are making decisions about buying homes, so that they know exactly what the future holds. People really need to think things through.”

‘Thousands are sleepwalking into financial ruin’

Campaigners claim there is a “significant difference” between the treatment of those living on river flood plains and those in vulnerable coastal locations.

Conveyancers should see if the property is at risk of flooding when they carry out an Environmental Data Search during the purchase, but this will not show up issues of coastal erosion. There is also a government-backed insurance package called Flood Re for flood-plain dwellers but nothing for those in coastal erosion hotspots, whose houses eventually become unsellable.

“When you buy a house, the seller has a legal obligation to say if their house is at risk of flooding [or if there have been previous floods there]. But there is no such obligation to say about coastal erosion and sea level rises,” explains Angela Terry of One Home, a charity that advises homeowners on the impact of climate change. “Thousands of people are buying dream seaside homes without realising it will be claimed by the sea.”

They are expecting the houses to see them out for the rest of their lives, only to face eviction and financial ruin.

A number of residents along the Norfolk coast have been forced to leave their homes at risk of collapse – Joe Giddens/PA

“These poor people have to demolish their house and end up in emergency accommodation, which is where they’ll stay as they have no more money to buy a house as they are mostly pensioners and aren’t working.”

In an effort to help buyers raise awareness of erosion problems, Great Yarmouth Borough Council has written to Norfolk estate agents “advising them that they are attempting to sell properties at immediate risk of coastal erosion”.

“The rule, when buying property, remains very much caveat emptor (buyer beware) and it might be argued there is a role here for the governing bodies of estate agents to require members to give full, explicit and transparent disclosure around sales particulars for properties in areas of erosion risk,” the council says in a statement on its website.

Meanwhile, in its guidance, National Trading Standards stipulates that a property listing “should include, if relevant, an accurate description or statement as to any known risk of coastal erosion affecting the property and its boundary”.

Ultimately, the onus falls on the surveyor and the buyer to identify and gauge the erosion risks at a seaside property.

Galloway, from Finbri, adds: “If a surveyor recommends against tenancy and deems the property as too high risk, this can definitely sway a bank’s likelihood of providing a loan to a prospective buyer.

“Those interested in buying should expect to go through a myriad of stringent assessments before a loan is potentially put on the table. This hesitancy means few can secure funding in traditional ways, and as a result these areas attract mostly cash buyers or those willing to take large risks.”

The likelihood of securing a loan for coastal properties largely depends on surveyors’ comments – Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images

James Bull, a broker at JB Mortgages, says: “Whether or not a mortgage lender will lend on such a property is usually down to the surveyor’s comments.

“In many cases the surveyor has commented the property is not suitable [for] lending, so some sales have certainly fallen through due to this.”

As well as mortgage difficulties, Galloway says obtaining home insurance on these coastal properties in at-risk areas is “extremely challenging”, with most companies refusing to offer erosion damage cover due to the high payout risk.

Property insurers paid out the equivalent of £13m every day last year to help homeowners and businesses cope with “unexpected and unwanted events”, according to the Association of British Insurers. The value of weather-related damage claims reached £573m – the highest on record, and 36pc greater than 2022 (£421m). The massive rise was largely fuelled by the succession of storms, including Babet, Ciaran and Debi that struck last autumn.

The Government has warned that by 2080 up to 1.5 million homes in England could be in an area that presents a major risk of coastal flooding as the sea level continues rising. Eroding coastlines are forecast to threaten around 100,000 properties. That clifftop dream home could become a nightmare for thousands in the years to come.

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