Essex FWAG

Coastal project seeks sea change on flood defence

Introducing Trazar Astley-Reid, Managing Coastal Change Field Officer.

A three-year project to assess the many approaches to coastal management has just been launched in Essex. Funded by Defra’s Innovation Programme*, the aim is to help landowners, and farmers understand and respond to the Government’s evolving coastal policy and the impacts of climate change. 

Located in Essex because it has the longest coastline of any English county, it is being run jointly by Agricultural Developments in the Eastern Region (ADER), the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), Farming and Wildlife Group (FWAG) and the National Farmers Union (NFU). The findings will have application to coastal areas throughout the country.

Trazar Astley-Reid, who has a background of working with farmers and most recently has been project managing coastal defence for the Environment Agency, has been appointed field officer.

Project board chairman and Essex farmer Andrew St Joseph said: “The need for this project is clear. The government, Environment Agency and Natural England are all busy putting together strategies that will affect the estuaries and coastline and determine where funds are spent on flood protection over the next 50 to 100 years. 

“By their very nature these strategies tend to apply to the entire coast, and this holistic approach does not provide the realistic and practical information that will help coastal farmers and landowners adjust their businesses to cope with the changes that lie ahead.

“Climate change predictions of sea level rise, combined with increased storms will inevitably lead to pressure on coastal defences and the farmed land including the many environmentally sensitive areas located along the coastal strip.  Managed realignment may be one solution, but there are other ways of ensuring a sustainable future for people, farming and wildlife.

“Our project seeks to establish a menu of options for the individual landowners along the coast.”

Trazar will begin by working with groups of landowners, starting in areas which are unlikely to be defended using public funds. She will be helping them to look at their options and find affordable solutions which also protect and enhance the local environment.

Mr St Joseph said: “Some farmers may opt for payments for environmental enhancement while others may look for opportunities to make money from recreation and tourism. Some may decide that the positive prospects for food and grown fuel production justify maintaining, at their own expense, the existing flood defences.  And who knows what new crops may be available that tolerate the occasional influx of sea water?

“Landowners are facing some difficult times ahead on the coastline but they can take some comfort that this project is working on their behalf to seek practical and financially viable ways forward.”

Trazar is employed by FWAG and is based at the Rural Business Centre, Writtle College, Lordship Road, Writtle, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 3RR
Tel: 01245 424108, Mob: 07900 192445 or Email: trazar.astley-reid@writtle.ac.uk  

Alternatively contact, Jim Egan, Eastern Regional Director FWAG, C/o Nottingham Trent University,
Brackenhurst Campus, Southwell, Nottinghamshire NG25 0QF
Tel: 01636 819056, Mob: 0771 3333 159 or Email: jim.egan@fwag.org.uk   

* The Defra innovation fund project was established to encourage the development of ideas for novel solutions to managing flood and coastal erosion risk. In total there are six such projects each with a different emphasis and varied locations. They are very much related and will build on each others work.