Mistake could hit Norfolk sea defences
By Richard Batson (Eastern Daily Press, 09 January 2006)
A massive overspend on a sea-defence scheme at the popular Yorkshire resort of Scarborough is making waves along Norfolk's erosion-hit shoreline.
Campaigners battling to protect Norfolk's seaside communities fear the £25m mistake has further hampered their hopes of winning funding.
Government officials have played down the impact of the "Scarborough effect" on the nation's coastal defence budget.
But the Norfolk-based Coastal Concerns Action Group says it is bound to have put a dent in a pot which is already too small.
And concerned North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb has vowed to seek more figures and answers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The Scarborough project, putting 2km of sea and wave walls around bays which suffer erosion and landslides, was due to cost £28m, with three quarters of it coming from Defra.
It ended up costing £53m, and an independent report has blamed the local council for a "sorry tale of errors and complacency" in overseeing the scheme.
Mr Lamb said he would be tabling Parliamentary questions to establish the facts and figures, and whether it had a knock-on impact for other coastal schemes.
An £8m repair of Cromer's seawalls and groynes has been put on ice because of a freeze on schemes because the Government fears its funding pot could be over-committed.
"It would be wrong if somewhere like Cromer suffered because of incompetence elsewhere," added Mr Lamb.
If he failed to get the answers he wanted, he would raise them face-to-face in a forthcoming meeting with Environment Minister Elliot Morley.
A Defra spokesman said cost overruns were not unusual and that estimating was "not an exact science" but that the Scarborough situation had a greater impact because of its scale.
It would have normally meant some other projects not being able to proceed.
But the extra cost was spread over four years and the "Scarborough effect" was offset by "extra large increases in funding" totalling £42m between 2002 and 2004 taken from other areas of spending.
"Because we prioritise projects for funding on a national basis, the cost of Scarborough should not have affected East Anglia to any greater extent than other areas of England, and the effect on future years will be negligible," added the spokesman.
Action group co-ordinator Malcolm Kerby said the overspend was bound to hit coastal defence schemes, which only currently got a £47m slice from a £570m national funding cake, the rest of which went to inland flood protection.
"Because funding is so tight for coast protection, any overspend will hurt," he added.
There was a big overspend when man-made reefs were built at Sea Palling, but Mr Kerby found it difficult to believe government facts or figures.
"They came up with a plan to protect Sea Palling to Winterton then refused to pay for a beach recharge.
"They have got to realise that we have to protect the coast, and not wait until we suffer a major disaster before they pour money in."
His group continued to lobby at government and European level, and was striving to prove that the coastal strip - where a third of the nation's population lived - needed protecting for the sake of preserving communities and heritage.
Today's meeting of North Norfolk District Council's Cabinet is due to debate the funding problems facing the Cromer seafront.