English: Coastal erosion The damage caused by wave action is obvious. Sea water has found its way around the sea defences and is now sweeping out to see sand and sections of the cliff face which once used to reach right up to the sea wall. The wooden groynes and revetments seen beyond are badly damaged and no longer serve their intended purpose.

After the devastating floods in 1953, where 300 people lost their lives, the first sea defences were built and later extended, using greenheart and jarrah wood, combined with steel, for the groynes and revetments. The rate of erosion > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/799574 decreased but despite numerous repairs, large portions of the revetments > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/799648 have been destroyed during the last 40 years > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/799589 and a large bay (called Low Light) has formed, due to cliff erosion, to the south of the village, which is on record as the first place in England where an average of two metres of cliff is lost per year. Lacking the funds for costly repairs, local authorities have decided to let nature run her course.

Whilst 30,000 tonnes of rock, shipped by barge, will be brought in to reinforce sea defences between Horsey Ness > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/946875 and Winterton Ness Gap, replacing the damaged groynes in the area > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/946906 and to construct a 275 metre long section of rock revetment at Eccles > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/802681 and 280,000 cubic metres of sand will be dredged from the seabed 10 miles offshore between Yarmouth and Lowestoft - it has already been predicted that the close proximity of this operation to the coast will cause further problems - in order to build up the beaches at Sea Palling > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/919741 and Waxham > https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/801579 - starting in October - no defences whatsoever are planned for protecting the most vulnerable area: Low Light - a short section of coastline between the village of Happisburgh and Cart Gap, located a short distance to the southwest - takes its name from a lighthouse that once stood at its clifftop. Despite Low Light having long been considered a key 'back door' to the Broads, no money has been spent there for half a century. Where the concrete sea wall stops, just northwest of the clifftop holiday homes above the lost village of Eccles, the North Sea is eating large chunks out of the cliff face, and it will continue to do so unchecked.