East Suffolk Council rejects coastal erosion replacement homes
Plans to build homes to replace properties lost or at risk from erosion refused over size and landscape impact
Plans to replace homes already lost or at risk of being demolished due to coastal erosion have been refused by a council.
East Suffolk councillors were asked to weigh in on plans submitted by Easton Bavents Limited to build four new homes in the countryside in Easton Lane, near Reydon.
The new homes would replace three cottages already lost to coastal erosion, as well as The Warren, a property at risk of being demolished within the next 20 years.
The plans were mostly identical to those refused by the council in September 2024 and dismissed by the planning inspector in July last year.
Despite the dismissal, the inspector disagreed with the council’s concerns the new homes were too large and would have negative impacts on the landscape, and instead turned down the application due to a technicality.
The new application addressed the inspector’s concern by including The Warren in the papers, which would, in turn, secure its demolition once the new property was built.
The plans still attracted opposition, however, with objection letters submitted by a resident, Reydon Parish Council, and Cllr David Beavan, the ward member — a further nine letters were submitted as part of the initial plans.
Bill Hancock, who spoke yesterday as an objector, said the farm where the new homes would be built was ‘far too valuable to be lost to unnecessary overdevelopment’.
Cllr Beavan said he agreed homes already lost to sea, or at risk of it, should be replaced, but echoed the concerns about their location.
He warned the councillors against creating a precedent for such schemes in the open countryside.
Anne Jones, who represented the applicant, said the company had spent more than a decade looking for a suitable place and stressed the inspector’s comments in support of the plans.
“We firmly believe this represents a positive and responsible adaptation response to coastal erosion,” she said.
Although councillors agreed in their opposition to the new homes, they were split on how to handle the application, given the inspector’s dismissal of the authority’s initial concerns.
An initial vote to approve the homes was lost with three votes for and five against, making way for further debate.
Cllr Paul Ashton warned voting the plans down would only result in another appeal the council would have to pay for.
“We’d just be voting to waste money and time,” he said.
Not everyone agreed.
Cllr Toby Hammond said: “We absolutely have to support the principle of replacement for those people who are suffering this very awful prospect of losing homes to the sea.
“If you are unfortunate enough to lose your house to the sea, then you get a kind of special pass … that shouldn’t be a house that you supersize as much as you possibly can.”
Cllr Andree Gee stressed concerns the new homes had ‘ballooned beyond all recognition’.
“I do feel there is obviously an element of hoping to get the maximum profit possible from them,” she said.
A vote to turn the application down passed with six votes for, one against and one abstention.
The council said the size of the new homes was not in keeping with existing buildings and stressed the harm to the landscape without appropriate mitigation in place.