Leader of Scarborough Council urges government to invest in coastal infrastructure schemes

Leaders of several local authorities including Coun Derek Bastiman, Leader of Scarborough Council, have signed a letter to Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, seeking his support.

Cllr Bastiman said: "Coastal authorities face ever increasing burden of having to mitigate the growing impact of coastal erosion on our communities and infrastructure.

"Our coastal defence structures are aging, reaching the end of their working life and in need of desperate need of investment. In some cases our structures are simply n longer capable of mitigating the climatic and hydrological changes within our environment."

The council leaders have now called for a National Coastal Erosion Resilience Review.

They have told Mr Gove: @The structures provide the first and last line of defence between our communities, the vital infrastructure, services and utilities which serve them, and the sea. Local authorities, along with such agencies as the Environment Agency and EU partners, directly invest #100's iof millions annually in the maintenance of these structures and the strain of local government resources in these coastal communities is significant.@

Cllr Bastiman's letter has been backed by several coast authority leaders including Cllr Carl Les, North Yorkshire, Cllr Stephen Parnaby, East Riding and Ben Houchen, the Mayor of Tees Valley.