Categoria: Home & Family, Home Improvement

Dozens of families on the east coast of England could be forced to abandon their homes as coastal erosion threatens to doom their properties to the sea. 

A recent report by climate group One Home estimated that coastal homes in England worth a total of £584million could be lost to cliff collapses by 2100. 

The report accounts for 2,218 homes across 21 coastal communities that have been brought closer to crumbling cliffs over the years.

Some homeowners expressed nervousness about having children stay overnight while others say they are too scared to cut the grass holding together the narrow stretches of turf along the cliff edges.

Grenadier Guard Lance Martin, 65, is among the householders in Hemsby, Norfolk who may be forced to move homes. If you want to check out more about EVDEN eve NAKliyat look at the webpage.  

Mr Martin is living in the last house left on his road, The Marrams, in a one-bed detached house where the cliff edge hugs his back patio fence.

His 11 neighbours have all been forced to abandon their properties to the sea since 2017, when Mr Martin moved in.

He only managed to remain on his property by dragging it 10.5 metres back from the cliff edge with a tractor after the 2018 Beast from the East storm ate away metres of ground from under his kitchen.

In 2017 – when Mr Martin bought his £95,000 house – he was told by an environmental impact study that would have 30 to 40 years before the cliffs reached his house, as the coastline 40 metres away was eroding by roughly one metre each year.

Three months later he had to physically cut the back of the house off and evdeN eVe NaKLiYat drop it into the sea to stop the rest of his house being pulled with it.

‘I was standing in the kitchen and heard a great big horrendous crack.I looked down and saw the sea underneath my feet,’ Mr Martin explained.

He has watched his neighbours move away one by one as their houses were demolished by the council after being deemed a public health and safety risk. 

He said: ‘It was horrible, some went slowly, some very quickly.I got the council to delay demolishing my house because I was determined to save my property.’

He was given two days to ‘pull his house back’ from the cliff. He hired a man with a tractor and a winch and together they felled two telegraph poles at the front and back of the property and pulled the house back by nearly 11 metres.

Ian Brennan is Chairman of the Save Hemsby Coastline charity, which has spent 10 years campaigning in an effort to convince Great Yarmouth Borough Council to take the erosion of the village seriously.

The 63-year-old retired telecoms manager lives further into the village but cares deeply about the problems his friends and neighbours face.

According to Mr Brennan, 90 homes are at risk of being lost in Hemsby over the next 25 years.

‘The whole thing is a political decision,’ Mr Brennan claimed. 

‘In Holland, most of the country should be in the water but they don’t have this problem because they spend the money that needs to be spent to protect the country.

‘I’m trying to persuade people that Hemsby is worth saving.’

He is currently waiting on planning permission for a multi-million-pound rock berm to be put in place to slow the erosion of the coast. 

A rock berm is a ridge constructed of compacted soil, gravel, rocks, and stones to direct water away from a particular area.Mr Brennan is hoping to raise money to fund the project. 

He said: ‘We can’t stop global warming, we can’t stop coastal erosion, but we can slow it down. We’re trying to buy time so people like Lance don’t have to worry.

‘Every time a storm hits the residents are nervous that they may have to walk away from their house with nothing but a carrier bag.

‘That’s the mental health impact we’re talking about.These people deserve to get a good night’s sleep – a rock berm will buy us 25 years. That’s enough time for people to decide what they want to do with their house and with their lives.’

Thirteen miles up the coast is Happisburgh, Norfolk, a village that has also experienced the loss of more than an entire street and 34 homes in the last 20 years.

Retired teacher Bryony Nierop-Reading, 77, lost her bungalow to erosion during a huge tidal surge in 2013. She had moved into a caravan further inland that night because she felt so unsafe in her home.

The next morning, she found the bungalow was still standing, but the back third of her home was hanging metres off of a cliff edge – that used to be solid ground.

‘To go from having a house to live in to not having a house to live in is shattering.It made me understand more how people who suffered in the tsunami in 2010 – there were pictures of people just sitting around,’ she recalled.

‘You get hit by the shock, then you can’t make decisions. It took me about six months before I could think properly.I struggled.’

A week after the storm struck, North Norfolk Council told Ms Nierop-Reading she couldn’t live in the caravan on her land. She pushed back against the council’s ruling but after four years of legal battles she ultimately lost the fight.

In 2018, she bought a two-bed semi-detached house for £99,000 at the end of the road.

‘I could have moved inland but I knew that if I did, I’d be like everybody else down the road who thinks erosion is somebody else’s problem,’ she explained.

‘I thought it would keep my mind concentrated if I lived on the edge.My family were very cross with me.’

The tarmac on Ms Nierop-Reading’s road, Beach Road, drops away suddenly 40 metres away from her front door. 

According to her measurements the road has lost eight metres in the last 12 months alone. She says the council are doing nothing to stop it.

Insurance companies also won’t cover for damage caused by erosion.

Though she’s worried about losing the value of her house, Ms Nierop-Reading said she is more concerned about what will happen when she’s no longer here.

Ms Nierop-Reading, who was widowed last year, said: ‘The government’s response is to “adapt”- all that means is not doing anything about the problem.

‘As a country we cannot ignore the fact that we are losing land all the time.

‘How long can they carry on shunting people inland?If the country gets smaller and smaller due to unaddressed erosion we will have a smaller country with an enlarged population with no way to feed them and house them.’

Nicola Bayless, a 47-year-old nurse, is Ms Nierop-Reading’s next-door neighbour.She has lived on the road for 19 years. 

Her home is attached to Ms Nierop-Reading’s house but faces inland. The pair are baffled by the reluctance to use any sea defences by the government.

‘As a teenager I used to come down here to my parents’ chalet – that’s no longer here.I’m very upset and stressed about the prospect of moving,’ Ms Bayless said.

‘I fell in love with the area and thought this is where we wanted to stay- we want our children to grow up somewhere lovely.’

Ms Bayless said the prospect of moving out of her three bedroom home within the next ten years – which is when she estimates the cliff will be on her doorstep – has left her feeling ‘very stressed and upset.’

‘You never know when your time is up really.It’s like renting. One day you could have another Beast from the East and lose half a field,’ she said.

‘Your house shakes. I opened the curtain the next morning in 2018 and thought, “Where the hell has the field gone?”‘

Similarly, the roads leading to East Yorkshire’s erosion hotspots are littered with signs advertising ‘holiday homes’,  many with price tags of £100,100 to £200,000.

Planning consent has also been granted for hundreds of new houses on fields just inland from the static caravans perched perilously above a 50 foot drop to the sea at Holderness.

Many of the caravan dwellers have seen entire rows of the caravan pitches in front of them topple into the sea in recent years.

Whether your pitch is a hundred yards either way of the ugly sea defences already scarring the sandy beaches stretching away to Filey Light House can make all the difference, residents stressed.

‘I always wanted to live by the sea but I could not afford a second house,’ Carol Stoker, 62, a retired secondary teacher from Halifax, West Yorkshire, said.

‘When I first looked out of the window of our caravan I nearly cried. It was the most beautiful view I had ever seen.

‘When I first bought the place I asked the seller “How long do you think we have got?” She said “20 years” – and I giggle about that now.’

Ms Stoker bought her caravan about four years ago.She experienced the impacts of coastal erosion that same year. 

‘There was a big cliff fall and about 3 metres went. There used to be a car park in front of us then,’ she said.

‘When you go out for a walk you see a crack in the ground.The next time you pass by you see it has got deeper. The next time that section of the cliff has gone completely.

‘The Government should do more because it is not just the caravans at risk – a load of agricultural land has been lost too.’

Robin Hargreaves, 67, also from Halifax, paid £10,000 for a static caravan and has lived on the site for nearly five years, having retired from running a nursing home.

He claims there is evidence of fresh erosion up the coast from his caravan.

‘There is always a bit of erosion going on somewhere.I can see it crumbling as I walk along the cliff,’ Mr Hargreaves shared.

‘We are talking about a 40 mile length of the coastline. I think the policy to protect the towns is sensible because you cannot do much about the force of nature.

‘I have seen entire rows of caravan pitches which have been lost.When they know one is going to go they have to dismantle the concrete base so it does not topple onto the beach.

‘But I won’t be going anywhere because I love it here. But I can see the cracks when I am out walking. It does not come crashing down. It just slides gently into the sea when it happens,

‘It is quite stable at the moment – but we do not take it for granted.’

Both Ms Stoker and Mr Hargreaves live a little over 100 yards beyond the Hornsea sea defences, meaning their caravans do not benefit from the concrete blocks and groynes that help reduce the impact of the waves.

Some of the other caravans above the sea defences are actually closer to the edge of the cliff – but the land is relatively stable.

John Hughes, 71, a retired fibre optic planner, is only six feet from the brink – and is taking no chances with the £37,000 static home he bought seven years ago with wife Carole, 71, a former secretary at Portsmouth University.

He said: ‘I never cut the grass – because the grass is helping hold the soil together and preventing it slipping off.

‘Everything in front of us has gone.If the worst comes to the worst the site will move the caravan further back but we hope it doesn’t come to that.’

The couple live on the stable part of the cliff above the sea defences. 

‘But if the erosion continues further up, where we are is going to become a peninsula,’ Mrs Hughes added.

‘The Government just seem content to let it go.If you live in a house around here it’s terrible.

‘We have got insurance so if anything was to happen it would not be very nice but it would not be the end of the world financially.

‘Obviously, it is not something you would want to happen if you have got the grandchildren staying.

‘You see someone checking the edge of the cliff every morning so they are really on top of it.But we are not so much concerned for ourselves as other people.’

‘There are building a whole load of new houses on a field not far from here. We are surprised they got planning permission but they did.’

Pat Cummings, 64, a retired Leeds dinner lady, is also above the sea defences and the ground seems stable.

She paid £30,000 for the caravan more than four years ago and reckons her investment is safe for the foreseeable future.

She said: ‘We have not had any movement here for 15 to 16 years which is good because I come here to read and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet.’

Villagers in Thorpeness, East Suffolk, are ‘scared for the future’ of their homes, as they see properties decimated by cliff erosion. 

Lucy Ansbro, 54, claims her house is now 12 metres closer to the cliff edge than it was when she first moved in 14 years ago.

Part of her garden has now fallen away and her house now lies only 20 metres from the edge.

At the time she purchased the £600k four bedroom property, she was told it would be upwards of 50 years before the erosion would be as bad as it is currently.

She now says the property would be worth ‘nothing’.

The TV and theatre producer said: ‘Where it is now was supposed to happen in 50 years, not 14.It’s just all happened very quickly.

‘It’s always been an issue on the east coast, there was a surge in 2010, but in the winter of 2019 we noticed the fences were eroding very quickly.

‘By February 2020, it a lot more erosion had happened and the house next doors defences had disappeared.

‘On Easter weekend of 2020 as we were sitting in the living room, we literally saw bits of our garden falling off of the cliff.

‘Since moving in, we’re 12 metres closer to the cliff, almost a metre a year, and the house next door lost about 25 metres.

‘We’ve spent £400,000 building proper defences, so we’re safe for now, but the house would be worth nothing now until it’s properly defended but it’s very concerning.’

In October last year, the house next door to Ms Ansbro’s had to be completely demolished as it was no longer safe to inhabit.

The demolished house, locally known as the ‘red house’, was built in the 1920s and was thought to have been worth £2million before it had to be torn down.

The owners had not installed the same defences Ms Ansbro has.

Ms Ansbro is working with the council and a local committee to fundraise and EVdEn evE NaKliyat build defence solutions along the entire coast, but fears it may take too long to save everyone.

She said: ‘Thorpeness isn’t my main concern – it’s quite a wealthy village with a lot of second homeowners.There’s so many other places along the east coast who simply don’t have the money to defend their houses – and it’s their only property they’re living in with their children.

‘We’re trying to do as much as we can to raise awareness and raise money to be ready for when sea levels rise.’

Another homeowner in Thorpness, Ben Brown, says his home is in a similar situation to his neighbours’.

Although the farmer was aware of the coastal erosion problem on the coast when they bought the property two years ago, he was told by surveyors that it wouldn’t be a serious issue for another 60 years.

The 52-year-old, whose home is a mere 70 metres from the cliff, said: ‘We knew about the issue and we had a survey done before we bought it to let us know how long we had before there would be trouble.

‘Things have accelerated so fast since then, and although the survey said it would be 60 years, I think it will be a lot sooner if nothing is done.

‘We live over the track so we’re not quite at the forefront yet but the house opposite unfortunately had to be taken down.

‘It’s definitely a worry because we’ve invested a lot of money here and we expected to have it a lot longer – it’s awful and we’re scared for the future. 

‘But I think there’s a plan being put together now and the intention is to get the cliff protected.’

By Mike Dolan

LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Like mirages on the horizon, recession forecasts seem to be appearing and disappearing with great regularity – questioning any investment conviction, the reliability of pandemic-distorted data and still-low volatility gauges in financial markets.

In just six weeks of 2023, economic forecasters have hurriedly revised away this year’s long-assumed recessions in euro zone and evDEn EvE nAKliYaT the United States – confounded as they were by a mix of warm weather in Europe and some wild U.S.jobs market revisions and statistical quirks that have dramatically reshaped the interest rate outlook stateside.

Throw in China’s unexpectedly swift removal of “zero COVID” restrictions and already 2023’s global picture looks radically different than it did only in December – never mind the previous January before the Ukraine invasion redrew inflation, interest rate and investment maps for everyone last year.

Bearing in mind the United States, China and euro zone together account for well over half the annual $101 trillion of global output, that’s some collective moving target.

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs – often a market mover with its big macro calls – is a good example.Last month it revised away forecasts for a euro zone contraction this year and this week cut its chances of a U. Here’s more information about EVden eve NAkliyaT look into our own site. S. recession in 2023 to just one-in-four from one-in-three previously.

Yet as recently as mid-December, forecasts from Bank of America, Barclays and BNP Paribas were also plumping for a full-year contraction of U.S.gross domestic product this year.

Last month’s Bank of America survey of fund managers around the world still had net 68% expecting recession this year.

But no one’s quite sure all of a sudden – and so much for so-called ‘leading indicators’ like the historically inverted U.S.Treasury yield curve – traditionally a sure fire predictor of downturns ahead.

Last Friday’s red hot January employment report is forcing hurried rethinks everywhere. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated baldly that the lowest jobless rate since 1969 is simply inconsistent with recession this year and Federal Reserve policymakers are already turning even more hawkish on the rate outlook.

Rates markets reared up to price Fed rates back above 5% and EvdEn EVE NaKliYat now expect them higher at yearend than they are today.Stocks swooned again and currency strategists, such as the team at Morgan Stanley, switched negative views on the U.S. dollar worldwide to neutral all of a sudden.

If that wasn’t enough whiplash, Fed Chair Jerome Powell chimed with his colleagues on more that needs to be done to tackle inflation – but also laced his comments with expectations of a cooling jobs market and opined on the difficulties predicting this cycle.

In other words, if your outlook hinges on getting a recession call right or nailing the timing of peak interest rates, be prepared to shift it now from week to week.

HOARDING AND FOMO

What’s the big deal?As famed British economist John Maynard Keynes is often quoted as saying: “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions.”

But the problem may indeed be the “information.”

To be sure, the dance around the “R word” is a little artificial.Rigid technical definitions involving consecutive quarters of contraction may mean changes are only the difference of a couple of tenths of GDP either way, the sort of margin easily revised away down the pike anyway.

A bigger issue is whether monthly data can be trusted for steer on the business cycle you’re trying to second guess.

High-frequency economic numbers were bamboozled by the pandemic’s economic shutdowns and reboot worldwide – with distortions still lingering on everything from supply chains to labour force participation, savings, consumption and policy rescues.

The energy shock around Ukraine merely compounded that by amplifying an outsize inflationary twist and household squeeze while jamming some supply chains even more.

Monthly economic updates now require significant health warnings and assumptions of “normalisation” may have been premature.

Although not inconsistent with other tight labour market soundings, the U.S.January jobs report was riddled with revisions, remodelling and seasonal adjustments.

While that may not change your view of employment today, reasonable concern about labour hoarding and lags between announcements of company layoffs and data surveys mean it’s hard to rely on it solely for a change of course the way many in markets seem to have done since Friday.

But even doubts about the data can be read both ways.Barclays’ economists stressed there was evidence of job hoarding in the fact that a huge downturn in the U.S. housing market last year clearly hasn’t shown up in construction layoffs. And if the Fed had assumed those job cuts would come and the sector is already bottoming, there may be more aggressive policy ahead.

But the numbers are so unclear, EVdEn EVE nakliYAT we’re still in a guessing game.

“It would be helpful to hear an assessment of what the Fed actually thinks is happening given structural economic changes, cyclical impulses and poorer quality data,” lamented UBS economist Paul Donovan ahead of Powell’s speech on Tuesday.

Investors trying to bet on where all this pans out can’t be filled with confidence.

And yet market volatility gauges have stayed peculiarly serene.

At just under 20, Wall Street’s VIX is pretty much at its average for the 33 years of existence.Bond market volatility remains well above its 20-year mean – but it has retreated sharply to two-thirds of last year’s peaks. Even currency volality is only marginally above average.

Are people just peering through the noisy macro and fearful of missing out on the return to beaten down assets?

BNP Paribas Chief Economist William De Vijlder talks of the risks of being “three times wrongfooted”.

“One would expect that bond and equity markets would rally when central banks signal that the tightening cycle is (almost) over,” he said.”But such positioning comes with the risk of being wrongfooted by the data. What follows is huge volatility.”

The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.

(by Mike Dolan, Twitter: @reutersMikeD; Editing by Josie Kao)

At the beating heart of Moscow, directly opposite the Kremlin on the eastern side of Red Square, you’ll find Russia’s most famous shopping mall.

Known as GUM, the ornate neo-classical building sits a stone’s throw from St Basil’s cathedral and the mausoleum of Lenin, the man who attempted to overthrow capitalism. 

Yet it has, in recent years, been filled with ‘landmark’ stores owned by luxury brands anxious to soak up the cash being liberally sprayed around by the post-Soviet oligarch class.

When they aren’t applauding the tanks that occasionally rumble over nearby cobblestones, cronies of Vladimir flock to this marble-floored emporium, arm-in-arm with their high-maintenance wives, mistresses and girlfriends to spend ill-gotten roubles on handbags, Tiffany jewellery and Hugo Boss suits.

At least they did. In late February last year, everything changed. That was when their autocratic President decided to invade Ukraine, turning Russia into a global pariah overnight.

As Putin’s soldiers raped and murdered their way across the country, Western consumer brands began responding to public revulsion by literally shutting up shop. 

Within weeks, the UK, EU and many Western countries had imposed sanctions to prevent fresh supplies of luxury goods from reaching Russia.

Today, the GUM centre’s Chanel, Tiffany and Hugo Boss outlets have closed their doors. 

You can no longer shop for shoes by Jimmy Choo or John Lobb, or handbags from the houses of Prada, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Hermes. If you have any issues with regards to where by as well as tips on how to use eVdEn Eve NAkliyat, you can e mail us with our web page.  

As they boarded up their boutiques and cancelled shipments of fresh stock to Russia, these famous purveyors of luxury goods simultaneously issued earnest PR statements expressing their desire to, as the saying goes, ‘stand with Ukraine’.

But today, almost a year after Putin’s tanks rolled over the border, shopaholics of the Russian elite aren’t entirely out of luck.

For beneath the building’s glass-domed roof, the Mail this week made a scandalous discovery: outposts of not one, but two famous British luxury brands are very much still open for business.

One is Paul Smith, the Nottingham-based purveyor of stripy scarves and modish menswear that its eponymous multi-millionaire founder and owner likes to describe as ‘classic with a twist’.

While their compatriots fire missiles into Kyiv’s schools and apartment blocks, I can reveal Russians are still rattling the tills at the local Paul Smith boutique from 10am to 10pm, seven days a week, happy to fork out 16,900 roubles (£197) for one of the brand’s signature colourful ties and EvDeN eVe naKliYAt much else.

The shelves remain well-stocked with many of the very latest Paul Smith products.

Indeed, on Wednesday an assistant attempted to flog our reporter an ’embossed leather folio’ — a sort of briefcase — from the firm’s ‘new season’ range, which only went on sale in the UK a few weeks back. Its price?A trifling 90,000 roubles, or £1,050.

Scandalously, the man whose firm made (and is therefore profiting from) this expensive trinket is not just a Knight of the Realm.

For in addition to being honoured by Tony Blair in the heyday of Cool Britannia — having served on New Labour’s Creative Industries Task Force — Sir Paul Smith, 76, was last year invited to Buckingham Palace so that Prince William could elevate him to membership of the Order of Companions of Honour, one of the highest gongs available to anyone in the creative industry.

The Moral Ratings Agency, a lobby group which monitors Western firms operating in Russia, describes his firm’s presence there as a ‘disgrace’, telling the Mail Sir Paul ought to get his brand out of Russia or be stripped of his titles.

A few doors down from Paul Smith’s red-fronted shop — and also open for business — you’ll find GUM’s branch of Agent Provocateur, the upscale English underwear brand popularised by Kate Moss in the 1990s. It is also stocking designs from the new season.

One of no fewer than ten Russian Agent Provocateur boutiques that are still open — all of which remain advertised on its British website — we found it selling crystal-embossed leather bondage whips for 73,000 roubles (£850), EvdEN EVe Nakliyat bejewelled pink brassieres for 110,000 roubles (£,1280) and thongs for up to 85,000 roubles (£990) each.

An assistant told us the last shipment of new stock arrived shortly before Christmas and a new one is due in March — just in time for International Women’s Day.

Again, it’s hard to see how this British luxury goods firm squares its presence in Moscow with the supposed values listed on its website. 

Shamelessly, given Russia’s ongoing use of rape as a weapon of war, Agent Provocateur claims to be dedicated to promoting ‘fearless femininity’ and is ‘adhering to the highest standard of ethics’.

The firm’s current owner, high street tycoon Mike Ashley is, however, no stranger to cutting lucrative business deals in questionable dictatorships. 

His moral compass was seemingly untroubled by his recent sale — for more than twice what he had paid — of football club Newcastle United to a Saudi Arabia-backed consortium.

Once they have stocked up on clothes and lingerie, every good oligarch needs a bespoke Rolls-Royce to whisk them from central Moscow to their gaudy dacha.

Which takes us to the British luxury car firm’s main Russian showroom, on the ground floor of an upscale hotel just across the Moskva river, roughly two miles west of Red Square.

Rolls-Royce insists it no longer sells new cars in Russia, claiming in a holier-than-thou media announcement that: ‘We stand for the peaceful co-existence of all cultures all over the world, in all times and at all locations.’