Thorpeness woman says her heart will break if home falls into sea

A woman said her heart would “break” if her home, built in 1928, was lost to the sea due to coastal erosion.

Jean Flick, 88, has lived in her home in Thorpeness, Suffolk, for the past 25 years, but the coastal erosion had worsened in recent years.

A section of her garden wall dropped to the beach earlier this year, and she was told if the cliff edge got to within 5m of the house, the property would have to be demolished. Ms Flick said the thought was “devastating”.

A spokesperson for East Suffolk Council said the accelerated erosion had left “quite limited” options available to people in the area.

Ms Flick remarried in 1999 after the death of her first husband from cancer and bought her Thorpeness property with her second husband for a fresh restart.

She said they were “very happy” before her second husband also died of cancer.

After another home in her street was demolished in 2022, Ms Flick feared she could lose her home too.

She added that Storm Babet in 2023 had “really ravaged” the cliffs.

She and her daughter, Frances Paul, 60, who lives nearby, were trying to secure planning permission for rock-filled cages called gabions to be placed at the foot of the cliffs to slow the erosion.

This would be a self-funded project, after previous defences were washed away.

“If nothing is done, if it comes within five metres of the house, it will be pulled down,” she said.

“No compensation, we have to pay for it to be pulled down, and my heart will just break because it’s my home.

“I know a lot of people have this problem [on] the coast and I sympathise with them because until it happens to you, you don’t realise the emotion that goes into the fact you’re going to lose your home.

“Without any compensation, where do you buy a house with nothing?

“Your home is gone, and it’s just devastating really.”

The Shoreline Management Plan for the stretch of coast – developed by agencies including the Environment Agency and the local authority said measures might be allowed that slow, but do not stop, the erosion.

Ms Flick said it was a “case now of getting paperwork signed, which seems to be taking ages” before they could get permission for gabion defences.

“It’s very urgent because most days you see another little bit gone,” she added.

An East Suffolk Council spokesperson said its “key priority” was to keep people safe while managing the erosion.

They added that it was exploring temporary, short-term interventions “that could be applied within an achievable timescale” while longer-term solutions were considered.

They said defences must accord with the Shoreline Management Plan policy of realignment; therefore, it was “important to consider alternatives to hard defences, to adapt and become more resilient to the risks of climate change and sea level rise”.