'Shingle all the way' along the beach from Shoreham to Lancing

15 Dec 2022 09:27 AM

Up to 5,000 cubic metres of shingle will be moved to maintain protection to homes and businesses. Recent storms caused erosion.

Important work started on the beach between Shoreham and Lancing on Thursday 8 December 2022. This work will help give better protection to local communities from coastal flooding this winter.

Recent storms have eroded away some of the shingle beach in Lancing that provides a soft-engineered flood defence.

Nick Gray, flood and coastal risk manager for the Environment Agency in Sussex, said:

We are taking shingle from Shoreham Fort and moving it along the beach to the eroded area at Lancing Beach Green.

As we enter the winter months, it is essential that the shingle beach is maintained to ensure it continues to provide protection to homes and businesses in Shoreham and Lancing.

Sea levels are projected to rise by over one metre in southern England over this century, and with more frequent powerful storms also predicted, the risk of increased coastal erosion and flooding is likely.

The shingle recycling will help to maintain the flood defences offered by the beach, and to provide the standard of protection required by the coastal defence scheme completed by the Environment Agency in partnership with Worthing Borough Council in 2005.

The Environment Agency will move 5,000 cubic metres of shingle from Shoreham to Lancing. This is the equivalent of moving 2 Olympic size swimming pools. The shingle is loaded into lorries by an excavator, which then transport the material to where it is needed. Bulldozers then position the material into the beach profile.

The beach will remain open, but the Environment Agency is advising the public to be cautious and keep a safe distance from working machinery.

Residents living in a flood-risk area are urged to check their flood-risk, sign up for free flood warnings and keep up-to-date with the latest situation at https://www.gov.uk/check-flood-risk, call Floodline on 0345 988 1188 or follow @EnvAgencySE on Twitter for the latest flood updates.

• More photos and video clip of the bulldozers on site are available from the Environment Agency press office.
• The beach is carefully monitored, and regular surveys are done, to provide information on shingle volumes and locations.
• The work started on 8 December and will take 4 weeks. Work will stop for Christmas on 23 December and start again in early January.
• The work schedule is weather dependant and therefore subject to change.
• The 2005 coastal defence scheme built the rock groynes along Lancing beach to Widewater. The scheme was designed to slow the natural movement of shingle along the beach. It better protects more than 1,400 residential properties and businesses from up to 1-in-100 year storms.
• The Environment Agency is working with local partners Friends of Shoreham Beach Group, Adur and Worthing District Council, Shoreham Port Authority and Sussex Wildlife Trust to ensure there is minimum impact on the local nature reserve.
• Between 2015 and 2021, the Environment Agency invested more than £1.2 billion as part of our the £2.6bn programme to better protect 170,000 properties from coastal flooding. This included funding of £318.2m for 190 schemes led by coastal protection authorities.