The demolition of five seaside houses has begun in Norfolk after coastal erosion put them at risk of collapsing on to the beach below.
Distraught homeowners in Hemsby wrote farewell messages on their houses before workers began demolishing one house on Saturday. “Gone but not forgotten” was scrawled on one seafront property.
Hemsby has been badly affected by coastal erosion, and a storm last month caused the collapse of a stretch of a road, after which the council inspected properties in the Marrams and decided to demolish five.
Great Yarmouth borough council said the decision was taken because the properties were “not structurally sound and are unsafe”, and the demolitions took place with the owners’ permission.
Marie Smith, one of those whose property is under a demolition order, moved into temporary accommodation with her partner, Tim Clarke, and 11-year-old daughter on Friday after being given a week to leave the home she owns with Clarke.
Smith, 42, said that when she and her partner received the notice from the council, they were lost for words. “Me and partner didn’t know what to say, what to think or where to put ourselves. It was quite scary.”
Smith sent her daughter, who has special needs, to school as usual on Friday to try to limit the disruption to her. “When we moved all our stuff yesterday, that’s when it hit us most,” Smith said. “I did cry a lot yesterday.”
The family has lived in the home for almost three years, and Smith said that when they bought the property they were reassured they would be able to remain there for a decade and decided to take a chance on it.
But things changed quickly. “When you’ve got a storm, you’re on edge all the time, every bang, every wave – you don’t sleep. Then the storm took the road and that was it,” she said, referring to the loss of the access road in November.
She is among those backing a local campaign’s calls for sea defences. “They should have done the sea defences ages ago,” she said. “That’s what left us losing our home.”
The demolition comes after a legal challenge was launched last month by a disability rights activist, a person fighting to save his home, and the environmental group Friends of the Earth, who are taking the government to court over its climate adaptation plans.
Friends of the Earth’s head of legal, Will Rundle, said: “This is devastating news for Mr Jordan and the other residents who are losing their homes without any compensation, or other much-needed support for their health and wellbeing. Far more could have been done in advance to either protect these homes altogether, or otherwise to help these residents at such a distressing time.
“The government should have put in place better warning systems so that they could plan more in advance, and provided financial, mental health and other practical support.”
The Save Hemsby Coastline campaign is calling for the construction of sea defences to protect nearly a mile of coastline and dozens of homes, at a cost of £20m. The Conservative MP for Great Yarmouth, Brandon Lewis, has said Hemsby does not qualify for sufficient government funding for sea defences.
Simon Measures, the campaign chair, said emotions in the local area were running high, “from extreme sadness to extreme anger”. He said: “It’s a day-to-day strain. I, along with everybody else, we live on weather reports. If someone tells us there’s going to be high winds we really panic.”
Measures described the community as “close knit”, saying that when someone shared online on Friday that one of those affected needed help moving, 40 people showed up. “We feel like we’re being picked off one by one,” Measures said. “Our life savings are in these buildings.”
Great Yarmouth borough council was contacted for comment. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said it could not comment on current criminal investigations or ongoing legal proceedings, but added that “the third National Adaptation Programme sets out a strategic five-year plan to boost resilience and protect people, homes, businesses and our cultural heritage against climate change risks”.
