Final Report to DEFRA - Jurassic Coast

• 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.
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