Cliff-top homes £90k erosion plan considered

The only access road to Flat Cliffs near Filey runs through Primrose Valley holiday village

The offer of a £90,000 grant to help members of an endangered cliff-top community plan for coastal erosion is set to be accepted by North Yorkshire Council.

The money would go towards helping residents of 45 properties at Flat Cliffs, near Filey, which the council said are "at imminent risk of loss" from coastal erosion.

A project to shore up the sole access road to the homes, which runs through Primrose Valley holiday village, was completed in 2018.

Officials previously said without the funding residents would be "unprepared for the loss of properties", making it difficult to manage the process when the time came for the buildings to be permanently vacated.

The money will be used to identify timescales for the loss of individual properties, according to a council report.

The local authority will also use the fund to "raise awareness of the coastal risks within the affected community and support residents" in their planning for the future.

Earlier efforts to shore up the road were a "temporary solution" intended to "buy some time" to enable residents to relocate and remove their belongings from the areas at risk, according to the council report.

The Yorkshire Regional Flood and Coastal Committee said its grant would go towards preparing the community of Flat Cliffs "to be ready for and be more resilient to coastal change".

Flat Cliffs is expected to suffer from severe coastal erosion over the next 20 years

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, earlier this year some residents of Flat Cliffs said they were already aware of the erosion taking place at the hamlet and that they would prefer the council to use its funding to help slow down the erosion process.

A decision on whether to accept the grant is set to be made at a meeting of North Yorkshire Council's environment directorate on 22 August.

There are currently no examples of a coastal adaptation plan being adopted by a maritime local authority in England, according to a report prepared for the meeting.

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