£36m fund to deal with erosion challenges along the East Yorkshire coast

East Riding of Yorkshire Council will receive funding to help its communities on areas of the coast that cannot sustainably be defended from coastal erosion.

The cash comes from the Government’s £200million Coastal Transition Accelerator Programme.

The Environment Agency will manage the programme, supporting the East Coast area and residents as it develops and delivers its local projects.

It will also ensure that ongoing learning is shared with other areas facing similar challenges.

The money could be used for:

○ Improving and replacing damaged community infrastructure, such as beach access or coastal transport links and replacing public or community owned buildings in areas at risk with removable, modular, or other innovative buildings

○ Repurposing land in coastal erosion zones for different uses such as temporary car parks and restoring and creating habitats to include green buffer zones

○ Working with the finance and property sectors to explore innovative finance or funding mechanisms to help move communities from the highest risk areas, for instance schemes to incentivise the relocation of at-risk infrastructure for businesses and homeowners

○ Developing the local planning system so it supports and facilitates the managed transition of communities from high-risk land and ensuring it restricts future development in areas affected by coastal erosion.

Councillor Jonathan Owen, leader of East Riding of Yorkshire Council, said: “Valuing our environment, tackling climate change, safeguarding our heritage and countryside whilst developing our infrastructure remain key priority areas for the council and on that basis, we very much welcome this announcement.

“Our coastal communities are vitally important to the East Riding and residents will be supported to prepare and plan for the long term impact of climate change, while also trialling some immediate actions that support the long-term resilience of communities near the coast.”

Floods Minister Rebecca Pow said: “As climate change brings more extreme weather, we must redouble our efforts to build a more resilient nation. We have ramped up flood and coastal erosion policies, and we will always defend our coastline where it is sustainable and sensible to do so. Where it isn’t we will support communities to adapt.

“What we are announcing today will support innovative solutions to help those areas most vulnerable to coastal erosion to prepare and adapt.”

The programme will run to March 2027, exploring and testing innovative opportunities.

A full evaluation of the programme will help to inform future national policy direction and will add to our coastal resilience activity elsewhere, which includes a national coastal erosion risk map providing clearer data about local risks to help local planning, and the ongoing national refresh of existing Shoreline Management Plans.

This is in addition to the £5.2 billion being invested in flood and coastal defences between 2021 and 2027, building around 2,000 new flood defences to better protect 336,000 properties from flooding and coastal erosion.