UK coast 'crumbling away' leaving locals terrified as they live on the edge with 'billionaire's view'

UK coast 'crumbling away' leaving locals terrified as they live on the edge with 'billionaire's view'

WATCH: Recent storms have caused damage to costal areas in Britain

GB News
Georgina Cutler

By Georgina Cutler


Published: 05/02/2024

- 17:32

There have been several 'significant' cliff collapses recently in the area

Residents in East Yorkshire have seen up to eight football pitches of land disappear as fears grow over the loss of whole villages.

Locals in Ulrome and Skipsea say a "billionaire’s view" is their main attraction but also their "biggest enemy".


The area has been hit with coastal erosion following a series of storms.

Damage has caused the land to crumble 30ft closer to the sea in just two weeks.

Ulrome coastline

Residents in East Yorkshire have seen up to eight football pitches of land disappear as fears grow over the loss of whole villages

Getty

Experts are warning that some villages could soon disappear on the fastest-eroding coastlines in Europe.

The public is being warned to stay away from cliff edges on the East Yorkshire coastline after several "significant" cliff collapses recently.

Wilfrid Houghton who operates Seaside Caravan Park at Ulrome believes since the mid-60s he has lost ten acres of land.

"2023, has been a terrible year, a very poor year for coastal erosion," he told the Mirror.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:

He said they have been suffering "with very high tides and very strong winds. That’s the sort of thing we’ve been having to put up with.

"It’s an uninterrupted view there across to Flamborough Head when the day’s clear. That’s our main attraction is the sea but in adverse times it is our biggest enemy as far as coastal erosion is concerned.

"When you get a big spell like this you have to move back and you are okay for a few years and then you have to move again. Retreat is an ongoing thing."

Geologists suggest the East Yorkshire coastline reduces by an average of six metres a year.

The area has been hit with coastal erosion following a series of storms.

Getty

Dr Eddie Dempsey, a lecturer in structural geology at the University of Hull said: "Climate change is here and now. We’ve been warning about it for 30 years, saying things will change in the future. We are going to have to learn to live with landslides and erosion on the coast.

"Ultimately that coast is going to disappear. How fast is still subject to the models but it is increasing in speed and we are going to start losing villages on the coast in the next 100 years. We have already lost villages on that coast.

"What we can do in the future is very limited. You can’t just protect parts of a coast as it has knock-on consequences. To implement a full coastal defence scheme would have detrimental effects on the natural ecosystems."

You may like