For over a hundred years, there have been rapid coastal problems at Hastings. However within the last 30 years, there have been drastic measures taken at Hastings to improve the coast and protect the town by implementing strategic coastal management plans where some have been successful and others not so successful.
The main idea behind the coastal engineering was to protect the cliff face at certain areas along the coast, and the beach and pier at Hastings. To do so, various stages of protection work were carried out. The first of these was the main protection of the cliff face; the aim was to prevent any falling rock and also cliff retreat with the hope that this would affect the input sediment rate, slowing it down. An extremely important coastal work implemented at the cliff sites from Hastings eastwards towards Fairlight. It was important however, to implement such works on the cliffs, because of their composition or geology that being soft sandstone with a shingle base all along the coastline. This rock type could prove dangerous, being soft and with little solidness in its structure. Therefore placing the protection over the rock cliffs was a very well thought and planned engineering work, however, could have proved slightly expensive.
Further towards base, at Hastings, wooden slots or groynes were placed in the sea, but still connected to the beach and acted as a barrier or mock-up of nature. The job of the groynes is to trap sediment, building up the beach material on the sand beach at Hastings. As the waves approach the shore, the groynes act as a slowing barrier, sustaining the energy from the waves as they come into collision. The calm water has little energy and so deposits material on the lee of the groynes helping to build up the beach sediment in between the groynes. Fairly effective at helping the beach nourishment scheme, but they do need replacing after several years or even months, and they can be expensive depending upon their size and distance stretching into the sea.
The third development has been a huge success. Built around 1896, the harbour in Hastings created a perfect environment for beach nourishment. Longshore drift was the main contributor to the nourishment process, as the harbour trapped the sediment as it moved easterly by longshore drift.