I lost my home to crumbling cliffs – my coastal community is the canary in the coal mine

Britain has always paint­ed itself as a nation that takes pride in hard work and rewards it fair­ly. That was always my sense, and what many peo­ple of my gen­er­a­tion, raised in the swing­ing six­ties, were led to believe. Those who gave a life of ser­vice and paid into the nation­al purse through tax­es and nation­al insur­ance could one day expect to enjoy the hard-earned fruits of their labour, in the way of com­fort, secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty. But this now rather quaint notion doesn’t seem to stack up in today’s Britain – one where work­ing pover­ty is rife, the rights of cor­po­ra­tions trump those of hard-work­ing peo­ple, and our polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives and insti­tu­tions are increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to hold accountable.

I should know, as some­one who felt that illu­sion shat­ter first hand. In Decem­ber last year, the dream home I’d worked my whole life for was lost to coastal ero­sion, fuelled by cli­mate change and aid­ed by gov­ern­ment inaction.

Hav­ing had a long and suc­cess­ful career as a marine engi­neer which took me first to the Nor­folk coast and lat­er all over the world, I expect­ed to ease into a com­fort­able retire­ment. I had cut my teeth in the field of sub­mersible tech­nolo­gies and became an expert in remote­ly-oper­at­ed under­wa­ter vehi­cles, which cer­tain­ly made for an excit­ing career. But it wasn’t with­out sac­ri­fice – the kind you can jus­ti­fy believ­ing your hard work is secur­ing a bet­ter future.

After 25 years in the indus­try, and a few years beyond that run­ning my own com­put­er repair busi­ness, my world shat­tered when I lost sev­er­al loved ones in close suc­ces­sion – includ­ing my part­ner of 19 years and my eldest son at just 23. It was then that I decid­ed to return to Nor­folk where I would live out my gold­en years and buy a final, for­ev­er home. Nes­tled atop the Nor­folk cliffs in the small, charm­ing vil­lage of Hems­by, I found the per­fect place which offered the peace, stun­ning sea views and prox­im­i­ty to nature I sought – the kind of retire­ment I felt I’d earned. It wasn’t a huge place, but I loved it all the same.

If the thought of a clifftop home sounds alarm bells, don’t think I didn’t do all the rel­e­vant back­ground checks before buy­ing. The sea has been the one con­stant in my life – I’ve been more than up close and per­son­al with it through­out my career – and I under­stand more than most just how unfor­giv­ing it can be.

When I bought my home in 2010, I got a full and thor­ough marine sur­vey, so I could be absolute­ly sure it would remain stand­ing for the course of my life­time. Back then I was told the prop­er­ty would be safe for at least 100 more years. Sad­ly, just 14 years lat­er the oppo­site was true.

Before Christ­mas, I was the lat­est in my com­mu­ni­ty to lose my pre­cious home to coastal ero­sion. Sev­en­teen oth­er prop­er­ties were lost before that – some of my neigh­bours bare­ly man­aged to save a hand­ful of their most trea­sured pos­ses­sions before their homes plunged into the sea. Oth­ers, like myself, had slight­ly more time to get their affairs in order before the coun­cil demol­ished them pre-emptively.

This was the cul­mi­na­tion of months, even years, of sleep­less nights won­der­ing whether I, and my home, would make it through the night – par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the worst storms where the win­dows rat­tled and waves lashed up bare­ly five meters away. But it was no freak event – it was a direct prod­uct of suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments fail­ing to roll out the kind of cli­mate action and adap­ta­tion mea­sures which could have pre­vent­ed it com­plete­ly and saved my close-knit community.

Save Hems­by Coast­line is a local cam­paign set up to draw atten­tion to Hemsby’s plight. With just a hand­ful of homes remain­ing that inch clos­er to the edge with each day, we hoped those with the pow­er to do some­thing might offer their sup­port and unlock much-need­ed fund­ing for sea defences. Sad­ly, the silence from our nation­al and local politi­cians has been overwhelming.

That’s why I decid­ed to take mat­ters into my own hands, by tak­ing the gov­ern­ment to court, along with my co-claimants – includ­ing the envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign group Friends of the Earth. The government’s fail­ure to offer a robust plan that can pro­tect peo­ple, homes and infra­struc­ture from the fore­see­able impacts of cli­mate change will be the focus of our chal­lenge this month at the High Court. We believe the Nation­al Adap­ta­tion Pro­gramme – essen­tial­ly the government’s plan to adapt to the effects of cli­mate break­down that can’t now be pre­vent­ed – breach­es the Cli­mate Change Act, as well as the human rights of peo­ple like me, who are bear­ing the brunt of cli­mate breakdown.

Ulti­mate­ly, it shouldn’t fall to us to force those in pow­er to take the threat of cli­mate change seri­ous­ly – we deserve to be pro­tect­ed. But I can’t help think­ing my com­mu­ni­ty is the canary in the coal mine. A stag­ger­ing 40% of England’s coast­lines are threat­ened by coastal ero­sion – that’s 8,900 prop­er­ties — if coastal defences aren’t con­sid­ered, not to men­tion the mil­lions of peo­ple threat­ened by flood­ing and extreme heat. Who­ev­er is elect­ed lat­er this week, must recog­nise that what we in Hems­by are fac­ing now is just the beginning.

What I loved most about my home – cool­ing down on the veran­da on a hot summer’s day, wit­ness­ing the mag­ic of the area’s rich wildlife includ­ing fox­es, munt­jac deer, nat­ter­jack toads and birds of all wingspans – can­not be replaced. I’m thank­ful that I’ve got a roof over my head, but the hous­ing I’ve been allo­cat­ed is far from ade­quate. Last week’s warm weath­er, which my new prop­er­ty sim­ply couldn’t cope with, showed me just how far we’ve yet to go to pre­pare our coun­try for our immi­nent future. There has been much talk of fix­ing our bro­ken coun­try at this elec­tion, but too lit­tle of this has focused on cli­mate. If we’re to ensure no one else gets left behind, then it must be a top pri­or­i­ty for the next government.

Read more Huck Elec­tion con­tent here.

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