Managed Retreat

If you keep walking past the pier, ignoring the slot machines, past the deserted boating lake and the cheap beach huts that sit not on the sand but in the carpark, you’ll come to a gate with several hand painted signs that read Private Land, and No Trespassing.

The potholed track leads up to a small collection of houses and farm buildings. In February, it is a rough, windswept territory. Clumps of gorse, hardy sheep and hundreds of rabbits are interspersed with broken sheds and pieces of discarded farm machinery, quietly waiting for a Heath Robinson to give them a new lease of life.

This is Easton Bavents. Once the most easterly point of England, it is suffering from one of the fastest rates of coastal erosion in the country (an average of 4 meters of land lost each year).

Since the war, 14 houses out of 28 have been lost to the sea. There are 14 left.

The Environment Agency have declared this land an area of ‘Managed Retreat’, which means that no tax payers money will be spent on building costly sea defenses. Instead, other more densely populated, more valuable land will be protected, and here the sea may take what it likes.

Thursley, a red brick, 1930s summer house, is the next reluctant sacrifice. It is currently 4 meters from the edge of the cliff. The two matching houses built at the same time but with better sea views, have long since gone over. The council have just issued a demolition order. Since up to 10 meters has been known to disappear on a stormy night, the house is now a danger to the public on the beach below. The owners must therefore pay to demolish the house that has been in their family for 3 generations.

Thursley has already had one stay of execution.

In 2005, Peter Boggis (who’s grandfather bought the land rights of Easton Bavents in 1904), decided to take matters into his own hands. He built a giant earthwork sea defense to protect the cliffs and his family’s land. Using contractors to bring in soil, and compact it using bulldozers on the beach, the 78 year old Peter Boggis built a bank of earth 1033 meters long, 25 meters wide, and 4 meters high all along the length of the Easton Bavents cliffs. He laid down 250,000 tonnes of compacted soil, and at its peak had 128 lorries a day arriving to deliver material.

His battle against the sea, has been echoed by a battle with government for the right to protect this piece of land. Locals in the nearby town objected to the traffic and materials he used. The Council required waste exemption licences and EU planning applications. Peter Boggis just kept building. Environmentalists objected to the impact on fossils that the erosion was revealing, and designated the cliff edge a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Peter Boggis was forced to stop the bulldozers and instead began a protracted legal battle for the right to continue to defend his coast.

In the 3 years since he built his sacrificial soft sea defense the sea has almost entirely worn it away. That’s 25 meters of land that’s been saved because of Peter Boggis’ earthwork. Or 25 meters of waste material washed out to sea. Depending on your perspective. Either way, Thursley gained another 4 years of life.

Easton Bavents isn’t a place I have any formal connection to. But from the moment I walked past those ‘No Trespassing’ notices, I felt there was something rich and strange about the place. There is something awkward about somewhere that has been declared simultaneously a territory not valuable enough to save, and yet also of special scientific interest. Peter and I have met a number of times and each time I find myself in awe of his absolute determination to fight, in every way he can, the advancing waves and the obstacles of bureaucracy.

Easton Bavents is not a pretty place, the houses there are battered and patched up. Everywhere there are edges. Fences half over the cliff. Roads that lead to a sheer drop. Fields that crumble onto the beach mid-acre. But it is home to the people who live there.

Is it a futile endeavour, to try to hold back the sea? Perhaps. But in Peter Boggis’ battle I am reminded of the words of Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Peter Boggis’ methods may be controversial, but perhaps we need people in our societies who fight against what we collectively decide is valuable, and what is not. What is worth preserving, and what is not. People who fight the decision to walk away. People who will not go gently into the night.