Coastal management.

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GEOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT

COASTAL MANAGEMENT

Heavy rain after dry summers is blamed

By Kathy Marks

THE LOBBY and several bedrooms parted company with the Holbeck Hall Hotel yesterday, leaving half of the four-star establishment behind.

Engineers said heavy rain this spring after several dry summers was the probable cause of the landslip, which has sent sections of the hotel toppling into the North Sea.

The north-east wing of the 30-bedroom hotel collapsed into Scarborough's South Bay on Saturday night. Guests had been evacuated early on Friday after huge cracks appeared overnight.

The rest of the east wing gave way yesterday, leaving the hotel barely half intact, but what remains is likely to be demolished.

Geologists say the east Yorkshire coast, with it's steep clay cliffs, has always been vulnerable. South of Scarborough, the 40-mile stretch of cliffs of Holderness is the fastest-eroding coastline in Europe and is experiencing the worst land-slips for 40 years.

But Mr Michael Clements, director of technical services for Scarborough council, said sea erosion was not a factor in the Holbeck landslip. The cliffs below the hotel are protected at their base by a sea wall.

The main problem, he said, was probably heavy rain which penetrated layers of sand and gravel in the cliffs, lubricating the clay which had cracked in hot weather.

"There is a long history of cliff movements in the area," Mr Clements said. "According to local records, the first Scarborough spa was carried away by a landslide in 1770, while the Holbeck cliffs suffered a major slip in 1912.

Cliff stabilisation schemes were carried out further north at Whitby in the 1980's and at Robin Hood's Bay in the 1970's. In the fishing village of Staives, the breakwaters were recently raised.

Pressure for further protection has run up against the obstacle of expense. "The cost of protecting these cliffs is phenomenal." Mr Clements said. "The work at Whitby cost £3.4 million."

Most developed areas around Scarborough have seawalls but this is not the case further south, where Mr Eddie Knapp, principal engineer of Holderness council, said there had been "unusually large and particularly worrying" land losses over the past six months.

"The average rate of erosion is 6ft a year but this year it has been up to 65ft in places," Mr Knapp said.

At Skirlington, 65ft of land has recently fallen into the sea, carrying away 23 bases at a caravan park, while 70ft of land has gone at Aldbrough caravan park, leaving 15ft of unfenced land before a 60ft drop into the sea.

A family living in a chalet at Atwick, near Hornsea, was rehoused when the cliff edge came perilously close.

Mrs Sue Earle, chairman of the Holderness Coast Protection Committee, is to outline local concerns in talks at the Agriculture Ministry today.

Mrs Earle, whose farm-house is 30ft from the cliff edge at Cowden, said: "Now that this has happened in a nationally-known resort, I hope it will help to bring the issue out into the open.

Daily Telegraph, 7.6.93

South Coast subsiding as the sea level rises

By Christine McGourty, Technology Correspondent

PART of the south coast of England is sinking at a rate of almost an inch every five years, according to new research.

The find comes from an analysis of tidal measurement data from 1962 until about 1985 by Portsmouth University researchers.

The higher tide measurements were thought to be a combination of subsidence and rising sea levels.

Discovery of the subsidence ‚ from Portsmouth to Newhaven ‚ follows evidence from around the world that global sea levels have risen by four to six inches over the past 100 years.

The subsidence will add to the problems expected from the sea level rise associated with global warming.

Sea levels on the south coast are expected to rise by at least eight inches by 2050.

Dr Janet Hooke, director of the university's river and coastal environment research group, said: "Most previous studies showed the subsidence was confined to East Anglia. This is the first analysis to show that parts of the south coast may be subsiding too. The movement may have origins back in the last ice age."

Malcolm Bray, one of the researchers, said at the Institute of British Geographers' annual conference in Nottingham: "It seems frightening.

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"What we're doing now is to work out what it means for the local authorities affected.

"We can't stop flooding ‚ that's an act of God ‚ but we may be able to minimise the impact through coherent local and regional strategies.

"We need to study the coast over longer distances and look slightly further into the future to stop authorities doing something that could have detrimental effects on their neighbours.

"Our research shows that some parts of the coast are independent but many parts are interconnected."

They found the stretch from Lyme Regis to Newhaven ...

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