'I'm 88 and I fear my home of 25 years will be lost to the sea'

An 88-year-old pensioner fears that her clifftop home of 25 years could be lost to the sea due to coastal erosion, a prospect she finds heartbreaking. After losing her first husband to cancer, Jean Flick remarried in 1999 and bought the seaside property in Thorpeness, Suffolk, with her second husband as a fresh start.

She recalls being "very happy" in their coastal home before her second husband also succumbed to cancer. According to Ms Flick, coastal erosion has intensified over recent years, with part of her garden wall collapsing onto the beach below earlier this year.

In 2022, another house on her street was demolished, and now Ms Flick worries her home might face the same fate. She and her daughter Frances Paul, who lives nearby, are attempting to secure planning permission for rock-filled cages, known as gabions, to be placed at the base of the cliffs to slow down the erosion.

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This would be a self-funded project, after previous defences were washed away. Ms Flick has been informed that if the cliff edge comes within five metres of the house, the property will have to be demolished.

"If nothing is done, if it comes within five metres of the house, it will be pulled down," she said. "No compensation, we have to pay for it to be pulled down and my heart will just break because it's my home.

"I know a lot of people have this problem (on) the coast and I sympathise with them because until it happens to you you don't realise the emotion that goes into the fact you're going to lose your home. Without any compensation, where do you buy a house with nothing? Your home is gone and it's just devastating really."

The property was constructed in 1928 and originally boasted five bedrooms, though now has four after one was converted into a lounge to take advantage of the ocean views.

"I just absolutely love it," said Ms Flick, who comes from an agricultural background. "It's my home, I know the people, it's a village, we have lots of things going on in the village."

The dwelling sits roughly two miles south of Sizewell, where construction of a fresh nuclear facility is underway. Ms Flick revealed that Storm Babet in 2023 "really ravaged" the clifftops.

"It really came with full force and I think that weakened the whole system along because it is sandy and there's no way of making sand stay still," she explained. "Sand erodes."

The approach outlined in the Shoreline Management Plan – created by bodies including the Environment Agency and the local council – for this section of coastline involves managed realignment. This means interventions may be permitted that delay – but do not prevent – the erosion process.

"We're working with the council and all the other people who are involved in it, but it's a job getting them all to meet together and agree together," said Ms Flick. "We would have liked to have carried on with rocks, as our next-door neighbour has, but we're not allowed that."

She expressed her frustration, stating it's a "case now of getting paperwork signed, which seems to be taking ages" before they could get the green light for gabion defences.

"It's very urgent because most days you see another little bit gone," Ms Flick warned. "It's the erosion coming underneath that brings the top down. My wall that was there is now on the beach."

She added: "You just don't know. When I draw the curtains in the morning it can be there, when I draw them the next morning another piece can be gone."

Her daughter, Ms Paul, a retired retail worker, said: "Even the low tides now are quite high."

She pointed out that as they would need to fund defences themselves, if permission were granted it would then be "a question of what's it going to cost, is it possible?".

An East Suffolk Council spokesperson said: "Our key priority is to keep people safe while managing a rapidly eroding coastline at Thorpeness. We are supporting affected residents to explore potential temporary, short-term interventions that could be applied within an achievable timescale while plans are explored for any possible longer-term solutions. We have been working closely with the community for a number of years, and due to recent accelerated rates of erosion, the options available are now quite limited."

Defences must accord with the Shoreline Management Plan policy of managed realignment and would only be permitted to slow erosion, the spokesperson said. "Therefore, it is important to consider alternatives to hard defences, to adapt and become more resilient to the risks of climate change and sea level rise."

The hamlet of Thorpeness was created as a whimsical holiday destination by a wealthy companion of Peter Pan creator JM Barrie. Scottish dramatist and barrister Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie had inherited land there in 1908 and Thorpeness was formally launched in 1913.

Thorpeness, featuring its expansive man-made boating lake and Peter Pan-themed islands, represents the first of two comprehensive purpose-built resort communities in Britain constructed prior to the emergence of holiday camps like Butlin's. The second is Portmeirion in North Wales, conceived by Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975.