Plans submitted to relocate several cottages after coastal erosion in Easton Bavents, Reydon, forces demolition

Plans have been submitted to relocate several cottages around half a mile inland after coastal erosion in a Suffolk village forced them to be demolished.

The application was submitted to East Suffolk Council by a small local company established in 1925, Easton Bavents Limited, after having already lost three cottages to coastal erosion in 2019.

The company’s planning statement says: “It is very clear that man-made climate change has massively increased the rate of erosion in recent years.

“There is no compensation for these huge losses and communities are unable to insure against their losses.”

Coastal erosion in East Suffolk has led to increased safety concerns, particularly after a road collapsed at Pakefield Holiday Park, in Lowestoft, in November last year.

The applicant initially tried to relocate the three properties in 2013 that were at immediate risk of demolition to a plot of land in Reydon but failed to do so due to local objections.

This was followed by another full application in 2018 which also ended up being refused by the council.

In 2019, six years after the company initially tried to relocate the cottages, it was forced to demolish three properties, resulting in a one-third income loss.

The company is now looking to roll back the three already demolished properties, alongside one cottage in danger of being lost in the next 20 years, about half a mile inland to its own plot of land to the east of Lowestoft Road, in Reydon.

The company’s application commits to building homes that are easily assembled and disassembled in case they need to be relocated to another place.