Easton Bavents home demolished as sea approaches

A cliff-top home near Southwold in Suffolk is being demolished due to the threat caused by coastal erosion.

The house in the hamlet of Easton Bavents was built in the 1930s and was originally about 260ft (80m) away from the edge of the cliff.

It is now just a few yards away from the edge and demolition work has begun.

Waveney District Council is piloting a government-funded scheme to fund the demolition and help residents affected by coastal erosion relocate.

David McGinnis, project officer of the Pathfinder scheme, said: "We've been working with the communities of Corton and Easton Bavents to try and find a way to adapt to the change that is inevitably coming.

"We're about to roll out a rather intensive programme of consultancy to try and find a new site of relocation and to roll back the community of Easton Bavents.

"That's going to go on for the next 10 months and hopefully we'll come out with a package where we've got a site and we've successfully achieved outline planning permission for the owners to relocate to a new site."

Mr McGinnis said trying to save the under-threat houses was not part of the project's remit.

"Pathfinder was never set up about sea defence simply because the funding of that is too vast," he said.

"In the current financial climate in this country we wouldn't have the funding to undertake such huge civil work to protect the land."