Bulldozers back in Lancing beach due bolster sea defences

The Environment Agency (EA) was back moving shingle on the beaches from Shoreham to Lancing on Friday afternoon to bolster sea defences.

Recent winter storms, such as Storm Bert in December, have eroded some of the beach in Lancing which provides a flood defence to coastal West Sussex.

A yellow weather warning from the Met Office was in place for the county until 3pm on Friday and it will be followed by a yellow warning for rain on Sunday and Monday.

On Wednesday, The Environment Agency moved nearly 20,000 tonnes of shingle across the beach on the day using six heavy duty dump trucks.

Heavy dump trucks moving shingles on Lancing beach (Image: Eddie Mitchell) Speaking to The Argus on the day, Russell Long, the Environment Agency Solent and South Downs operations manager, said: “All of this beach [Lancing] is a sea defence, but it’s a sacrificial sea defence.

“So, in essence a shingle beach has done its job if its disappeared in a storm, its taken the energy, it’s protected the beach and the properties behind it but after that it needs maintenance.”

Russell explained that the shingle eventually goes and ‘over time it erodes itself towards the houses’, so the Environment Agency have to come back every year to remove the shingle that collects at Shoreham Port and bring it back to Lancing.

He added: “Once a year we grab all that was collected in Shoreham and bring it to Lancing, where the beach is at its thinnest and dump it there and throughout the year it will make its way down.

“Most of Sussex is protected by this shingle beach. To the public it may seem like an exercise in futility, moving bits of stone from one place to another, but in reality it’s the best way of doing it and protecting houses from getting flooded.”