Cuckmere Haven: £1m 'needed to save clifftop cottages'

Cuckmere Haven sits on the Sussex coast close to the Seven Sisters cliffs

Cottage owners on a famous stretch of Sussex coastline have predicted £1m is needed to pay for urgent sea defences.

Cuckmere Haven could suffer at the hands of rising sea levels and storm surges, and campaigners are keen to build their own defences.

The Environment Agency (EA) stopped funding for its sea wall which was damaged during storms in 2013 and 2014.

Now charity Cuckmere Haven SOS has raised £40,000 in a bid to bolster the sea walls already there.

One of the four buildings that stands on top of the cliffs has been owned by Lucy Mutter and her family for four generations.

An aerial view of the cottages at Cuckmere Haven

Her great-grandfather bought the cottages and her grandfather helped build one of the current defences.

She has found herself tasked with protecting the cottages, which have featured in films and TV series such as Mr Holmes, Luther and Atonement.

A complex planning application has been submitted by Cuckmere Haven SOS with a view to expanding the sea wall originally built by the EA.

Mrs Mutter said: "We think we will need £1m because we need to have plant machinery. It has cost £50,000 just for the planning application.

"We had huge storms in 2013 and 2014 and at that point the Environment Agency wall was dilapidated. It was totally destroyed.

"It is only a matter of time the big walls are compromised and it is a race against time."

Storm surge

Research carried out by Dr Raymond Ward, principal lecturer on physical geography at the University of Brighton, has shed some light on subsidence in the south east of England.

He said: "Climate change is exceptionally serious in the South East. We have got about 4mm per year of sea level rise at the moment although predictions are that rate will increase over next 20, 50 and 100 years.

"Predominantly it is an increase in gases, methane and CO2, they do an excellent job of trapping heat. What that leads to is the melting of land fast ice [ice fastened to the coastline].

"If you get a big storm surge and the sea level is metre higher, it will overwhelm our current defences."

The cottages are at risk from rising sea levels

In February 2016 volunteers worked to shore up the coastline in a desperate bid to save the cottages perched on the cliff edge.

However, the concrete defence lasted just one night and was washed away.

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Even more importance has been placed on their actions since the EA decided not to continue maintaining flood defences in 2016.

The agency, which still clears shingle from the mouth of the river, said there was little flood risk in 2016.

However, it has said it is investing £2.6bn on other areas of the coastline between 2015 and 2021 to protect 300,000 homes.

This story features on Inside Out in the South East on BBC One, Monday 2 September at 19:30 BST.

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