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Alde and Ore Net
SCAR
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The aim of SCAR is to preserve and protect, for
future generations, the
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SCAR is supported by a wide range of organisations and individuals including Suffolk County Council, Suffolk Coastal District Council, Waveney District Council, Parish and Town Councils, the Alde and Ore Association, the Blyth Estuary Group, the Felixstowe Ferry Forum, the River Deben Association, the Walberswick Sea Defence Group, the Country Landowners Association, the Suffolk Preservation Society and many others. All support the position statement set out below. The Leader of the Partnership is the Rt Hon John Gummer MP. The Chairman is Graham Henderson who may be contacted on 01394 286613 or by email at graham@henders.biz.
The Partnership held its first Annual General Meeting on 11 January at 7pm in the Council Chambers of the Suffolk Coastal District Council. Graham Henderson, re-appointed Chairman of SCAR, said that a WAVE of objection to Government coastal defence policy could build into a “tsunami” of protest. For more details please follow this link.
Recent statements in support of SCAR can be found by following the news link on this web site.
POSITION STATEMENT.
Members of SCAR subscribe to the following:
1 We believe that Government should protect and defend its people and
coastal lands from flood and climate change as vigorously as from any other
threat. In particular, we believe in the defence of Suffolk with: its rural and
coastal communities; its listed historic buildings — including the Martello
towers; and its long coastline and many rivers — mostly designated as an Area of
Outstanding Natural Beauty. Over the
past 100 years our nation has successfully maintained the broad configuration of
our coastline and estuaries. Over the next 100
years climate change and possible sea level rise could present an increasingly
serious threat to our coast and river defences. We believe that current policy
for our coast should be to ‘hold the line’. Maintenance of the existing
defences for the next twenty years can permit monitoring of sea levels and
climate change to obtain better information than that currently available, which
changes as more information is obtained. Only when there is clear evidence at
key pressure points that such a policy is unsustainable, should that policy be
modified.
2 We urgently call upon Government to increase expenditure on protecting the Suffolk coast from under £5 million to at least £30 million year, based on the following points:
Less than half a per cent of the total
East Anglian flood funding is spent on sea defence maintenance. This is
clearly insufficient.
In recent years the Environment Agency
has spent, in some areas, over three times as much on Suffolk Coastal
strategy studies as on the main purpose of flood defence.
The Association of British Insurers has said that the cost of a major coastal flood could be as much as £16 billion with a sea level rise of just 0.4 metres; together with a Select Committee of the House of Commons, it recommends improvements in flood defences which could save up to £6.8 billion.
3 We believe the Government has a duty of care to people living in areas of flood risk and damage to property as a result of coastal erosion. This should be reflected in a new statutory duty to protect the coastline. Compensation should be paid where this is not practicable. Under EU directives the Government is properly exercising its statutory duty to protect birds and wildlife habitats. We urge it to fulfil its obligations, under EU law on human rights, to protect people, land and property.
4 Should future sea level rise or changing weather patterns require particular action at pressure points along our coast and tidal rivers, we recommend devising local solutions in local partnerships, as proposed by DEFRA.