Thursday 1 July 2010

Building by the sea

A few years ago I read an article about global warming and how the sea levels would rise. It went into great detail as to how our island's boundaries would change. I lived in east Lancashire at the time and my area was quite safe so I managed to sleep soundly. However I did notice that even though the north west did not do too badly, there was some land lost by the coast.

Now I live in Morecambe and the whole peninsula is fairly flat. It is easy to see how the whole area may be at risk and we have good sea defences which are constantly upgraded, unless you live in Sunderland Point and Heysham is under serious threat of erosion too.

This leads me to another letter in the local paper (see yesterday's blog) about a possible development by Urban Splash near the Midland Hotel. There have been objections on many grounds, amendments to these plans and consultation is ongoing but I am not clear why attitudes have changed to building so close to the sea. Will any building on the sea side of the promenade get insurance against flooding? Will any building be designed as flood-proof.

It is a while since I saw buildings on the news on the east coast fall into the sea due to erosion, and places like St Peter's Heysham and the whole of Sunderland Point are under the same serious threat. It seems strange to me that we can allow our heritage to disappear under water but afford to build in areas that are at sea level.

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