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Walton's Coastal Heritage NAZE PROTECTION SOCIETY Newsletter: EDITORIAL COMMENT
Review Page 3 - Editorial Digest of The Naze Protection Society Newsletter
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~ THE NAZE PROTECTION SOCIETY ~
special publication: "The Erosion of the Naze" (2006 revision)
packed with information... 50 million years...  6 pages...  3 maps...  price: only £2.00
now available at the Charity Trust Shop and at the Naze Tower - and by post
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CRAG WALK
Project
 Approval
by TDC
Cabinet:
NAZE NEWS
CRAG WALK
SPONSOR A ROCK Appeal
PAYING THE PRICE OF INDECISION  
(Editorial - Autumn 2005)
It has taken the Naze Protection Society eight years of campaigning to bring consensus to all sides in the hugely controversial matter of deciding the way forward to save the Naze cliffs from further destruction. While Tendring District Council owns the land that is slowly falling into the sea, English Nature jealously guards this Site of Special Scientific Interest from any coastal protection work that will prevent the natural erosion of the fossil-rich red crag cliffs.    
      Building a revetment to prevent further cliff toe undercutting by the sea inevitably stabilizes the cliff slope and encourages the growth of vegetation. As an essential part of their maintenance contract, the council will have to scrape away this growth to keep the crag exposed so that scientific interest in the fossil layers is perpetuated.
     Thus, a compromise is finally reached. The red crag is internationally renowned for its fossils. The Naze Tower, a rare example of an eighteenth century day mark; is grade two listed and stands as an iconic symbol for the town of Walton-on-the-Naze. To the rear of the cliffs and the Tower sit the endangered residential properties in Old Hall Lane. The compromise should therefore provide a successful outcome for all interested parties.    
      It should not be forgotten, however, that it is nearly fifty years since any decisive action has been taken to save the Naze cliffs and the Public Open Space that lies behind them. Bureaucratic indecision has allowed the destruction of a huge strip of coastline stretching from the Tower Groyne to the ruins of the Tamarisk Wall and beyond.    
      The price of these years of indecision will be high. Council blueprints show that the Links Café will collapse when the cliffs are finally graded into a stable slope. The angle of the proposed revetment wall will cut deep into the Naze in years to come as the on-going structure is added to under the council’s contractual maintenance obligations. As a consequence, nearly half of the existing Naze may eventually be lost – a huge swathe - an area even larger than the old 1930’s golf course!    
      Even if and when the revetment is finally built, that may not be the end of bureaucratic delays and indecision, for it is by no means certain that English Nature will allow it to be extended since the conditions of the SSSI site means that erosion must continue. That means that Tendring District Council will have to agree to keep the graded cliff face clear of vegetation for evermore! Are they ready for that, one wonders?    
      Then there is the very question of the continuity tomorrow of agreements made today. A few months ago the council said that they would maintain the wall on a 2-3 years basis. Now they are saying every five years. At the Naze Protection Society AGM John Ryan (Head of Council Technical Services) said that it is unrealistic to make political decisions that are planned for more than ten years into the future.    
      So, where does that leave the future of the Naze? The council plans call for 100 years of development in order to fulfil their objectives. What guarantee have we that the work will be continued in our children’s or grand children’s lifetimes? What new ‘disagreements’ might arise then? Ironically, as climatic changes bring about more violent storms and higher sea levels, those guarantees will become more and more significant…    
      Voltaire once commented: “Men argue, nature acts”  How right he was!
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Nazeman
STORM SURGE!
November 2007
The disappearance
of the Naze cliffs
click on image for erosion rates:
________________
CASUAL
CLOTHES
OFFER!
The Naze
Protection Society
stocks a range
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embroidered
with a special
coloured logo.
 Now available
from the
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Walton-on-the-Naze  
Essex
CO14 8BH
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~ Fossil ~
SHARKS
TEETH
Special
souvenir packs
now available
from our shop
only 50p!
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A QUESTION OF INTEGRITY
   (Editorial - Summer 05)
Nobody can dispute that towns need car parks – a seaside town like Clacton, especially. Nobody can dispute that car parks cost money, either. What can be disputed, however, is where that money comes from. After all, if a certain sum of money has been earmarked for a specific purpose, then surely only a crisis or emergency should be sufficient to allow reallocation of those funds.
      We elect councillors to look after our local interests and trust them to allocate our taxes according to need or expectation. What we don’t elect them for is to play fast and loose with that public money once a management decision has been put in place. After all, a decision is a decision – that’s part of being a manager, whether it is representing company or corporation.
      Here in Tendring, sometime in the late nineties, a council decision was overturned that has had a far-reaching effect on our local environment... (read rest of story here)
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Useful Links:
Naze Notes SITE MAP
Naze Notes *BLOG*  
Naze Notes OBJECTIVE
The Naze Cliffs are falling into the sea. That's a fact, but...
WHO CARES?  
(Editorial - Spring 05)
"We have only to look a little further up the coast at the North Norfolk village of Happisburgh to appreciate the value of natural protection. There, the village is experiencing economic catastrophe as sea erosion causes buildings to collapse and families to be evicted. People who thought that they had a lifetime’s reprieve from the encroachment of the sea watch in horror as the forces of nature wreak havoc at a speed that neither councillor nor engineer ever thought possible a few years ago." (read full text here)
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Editorial Update: The following is a section of text from the March 05 Sunday Times Magazine acticle, "The Day After Tomorrow", which discusses at length the problems associated with sea defences. Regarding revetments, the article states: "To fortify village frontages would be to create barren, beachless headlands as the softer coast eroded around them, and the headlands themselves would prevent the transport of sediment so that the plight of beaches would get even worse. Past lunacies are exemplified by the stretch between Eccles and Winterton, where a concrete revetment became so dangerously undermined by the churning of the tides that 150,000 cubic metres of sand now has to be piped every year from the sea bed, at a cost of £2m."
reset: April 2005

 

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