Final Report to DEFRA - Jurassic Coast

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• Resilience: the project has contributed to a growing realisation within communities that they need to take action for themselves to increase their resilience to coastal change, irrespective of action taken by central and local Government. Four of the six case study sites are now considering community emergency resilience plans for their areas. • Community empowerment: as a result of capacity building and awareness raising activities, stakeholders involved in the Pathfinder process feel that they are better equipped to influence the decision making process. One community, Swanage, has established a Swanage Coast Forum to continue the discussion started by Pathfinder and raise awareness of the issues within the town. • Dialogue between coastal managers and communities: there has been a step-change in the quality and quantity of dialogue between coastal management professionals and residents in the six communities identified as case studies. A number of specific proposals are under consideration as a result of bi-lateral or multi-lateral discussions initiated by the Pathfinder project. One community is now actively investigating the potential for ‘roll back’ of a key community building threatened by erosion. • Coastal change education: the project has led directly to a significantly raised profile for geography and coastal change in the school curriculum locally. It has also given a cohort of the most gifted and talented students a unique opportunity to study coastal change, and in doing so potentially prepared a future generation of community leaders to deal with the issue. • Spatial planning for coastal change: the project has contributed to a growing awareness of the need and potential for spatial planning to better address coastal change, and for local authorities across the Jurassic Coast to collaborate to ensure a consistent approach. Lessons learnt Key lessons emerging from the Jurassic Coast Pathfinder project were that: • Good process design is the key to successful engagement: the skills required are not the same as conventional communication skills and do not necessarily exist within the coastal management professions. While those leading the SMP2 process made efforts to consult coastal communities, many communities clearly did not feel sufficiently engaged in the process. • An open and honest approach is essential: if Government and regulators want communities to make good long-term decisions, they need to present communities with clear and consistent information about long-term risks arising from coastal change. • There is opportunity in coastal change as well as threat: but a well designed and facilitated process of discussion may be necessary to draw this out. • An inclusive approach is a pre-requisite with engagement seeking to involve all key stakeholders (particularly statutory bodies), not just most. • Strenuous efforts should be made to engage those with most to lose from coastal change (i.e. those with properties or businesses at risk) but also to engage those in coastal communities with less to lose – they have a stake too, as, even if defended, coastal towns will still face risks and need to adapt. 4
• Visualising change can be a powerful means of communicating coastal change impacts to communities – some of the information available currently tends to obscure rather than illuminate the impacts of coastal change. • Expectations are high, but can be managed through meaningful dialogue which explores the limits of what can and can not be done in the face of coastal change. • The state has obligations to communities at risk, and can not hide behind the absence of a legal obligation to compensate for loss to coastal change, particularly as such losses will accelerate in future. • Communities and individuals are pragmatic about change, and open minded about potential relocation as long as the right support and incentives are available. • It is not just communities who need to adapt to coastal change – statutory agencies, local authorities and Government also need to adapt their policy and regulatory frameworks to take account of the issues raised. Key conclusions • The Jurassic Coast Pathfinder project has taken our understanding of coastal change and the conversation between coastal communities and coastal managers to a new level. • The project has been a constructive, positive and worthwhile exercise for most of those involved. Progress has also been made in a short space of time with most of the key aims of the project. • Particular progress has been made in awareness raising, engaging communities in a productive discussion about how to respond that change, and developing a wider range of options to adapt. • Managing expectations was always going to be a challenge but the project has been reasonably successful in delivering what it said it would deliver, and managing expectations about what it could not deliver to a realistic level. • The project has not fundamentally changed the widespread public expectation that Government (in some form) should and will continue to defend communities against erosion; but it would have been unrealistic to expect this to happen. • It has demonstrated, however, that, with a targeted and well-designed process of dialogue, communities can be effectively engaged in the process of planning to adapt, as well as being empowered to take forward some adaptation actions for themselves. • The potential for conflict between the public interest inherent in a natural coastline and private interests threatened by unmanaged coastal change is likely to increase – Pathfinder type dialogues are an important first step in reconciling these conflicts. • As Natural Environment White Paper suggests, we must quantify the wider benefits of natural coastal change if they are to carry adequate weight in the decision-making process. • It may never be possible to persuade communities threatened by coastal change to wholly embrace the idea – but Pathfinder suggests it is possible to help them understand why change is happening, and to come to terms with the need to adapt to it. 5
Page 1 and 2: JURASSIC COAST PATHFINDER PROJECT J
Page 3: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Jurassic Coas
Page 7 and 8: 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Project backgro
Page 9 and 10: • Bring their wider expertise and
Page 11 and 12: Other existing employees of partner
Page 13 and 14: 2. SHARING THE LESSONS FROM PATHFIN
Page 15 and 16: 3. DELIVERING THE JURASSIC COAST PA
Page 17 and 18: • Building the capacity of future
Page 19 and 20: Aim 6: Future generations of coasta
Page 21 and 22: the Dorset Coast Forum newsletter a
Page 23 and 24: The method used was a telephone sur
Page 25 and 26: There is opportunity in coastal cha
Page 27 and 28: Issues like coastal change, natural
Page 29 and 30: end of the process, however, when t
Page 31 and 32: they are unable to move quickly to
Page 33 and 34: explicit backing of central Governm
Page 35 and 36: other comms materials not included
Page 37 and 38: advice to those communities and (ii
Page 39 and 40: maintain LSPs, but it would be unfo
Page 41 and 42: 6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Page 43 and 44: temptation to disengage as a respon
Page 45: emphasis when working with business

Final Report to DEFRA - Jurassic Coast

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