Press release

'Shingle all the way' along the beach from Shoreham to Lancing

Up to 5,000 cubic metres of shingle will be moved to maintain protection to homes and businesses. Recent storms caused erosion.

Environment Agency staff work to maintain flood protection between Shoreham and Lancing

Up to 5,000 cubic metres of shingle is moved to maintain protection to homes and businesses around Seaford

Important work started on the beach between Shoreham and Lancing on Thursday 8 December 2022. This work will help give better protection to local communities from coastal flooding this winter.

Recent storms have eroded away some of the shingle beach in Lancing that provides a soft-engineered flood defence.

Nick Gray, flood and coastal risk manager for the Environment Agency in Sussex, said:

We are taking shingle from Shoreham Fort and moving it along the beach to the eroded area at Lancing Beach Green.

As we enter the winter months, it is essential that the shingle beach is maintained to ensure it continues to provide protection to homes and businesses in Shoreham and Lancing.

Sea levels are projected to rise by over one metre in southern England over this century, and with more frequent powerful storms also predicted, the risk of increased coastal erosion and flooding is likely.

皇冠体育app shingle recycling will help to maintain the flood defences offered by the beach, and to provide the standard of protection required by the coastal defence scheme completed by the Environment Agency in partnership with Worthing Borough Council in 2005.

皇冠体育app Environment Agency will move 5,000 cubic metres of shingle from Shoreham to Lancing. This is the equivalent of moving 2 Olympic size swimming pools. 皇冠体育app shingle is loaded into lorries by an excavator, which then transport the material to where it is needed. Bulldozers then position the material into the beach profile.

皇冠体育app beach will remain open, but the Environment Agency is advising the public to be cautious and keep a safe distance from working machinery.

Residents living in a flood-risk area are urged to check their flood-risk, sign up for free flood warnings and keep up-to-date with the latest situation at , call聽Floodline聽on 0345 988 1188 or follow @EnvAgencySE on Twitter for the latest flood updates.

  • More photos and video clip of the bulldozers on site are available from the Environment Agency press office.
  • 皇冠体育app beach is carefully monitored, and regular surveys are done, to provide information on shingle volumes and locations.
  • 皇冠体育app work started on 8 December and will take 4 weeks. Work will stop for Christmas on 23 December and start again in early January.
  • 皇冠体育app work schedule is weather dependant and therefore subject to change.
  • 皇冠体育app 2005 coastal defence scheme built the rock groynes along Lancing beach to Widewater. 皇冠体育app scheme was designed to slow the natural movement of shingle along the beach. It better protects more than 1,400 residential properties and businesses from up to 1-in-100 year storms.
  • 皇冠体育app Environment Agency is working with local partners Friends of Shoreham Beach Group, Adur and Worthing District Council, Shoreham Port Authority and Sussex Wildlife Trust to ensure there is minimum impact on the local nature reserve.
  • Between 2015 and 2021, the Environment Agency invested more than 拢1.2 billion as part of our the 拢2.6bn programme to better protect 170,000 properties from coastal flooding. This included funding of 拢318.2m for 190 schemes led by coastal protection authorities.

Updates to this page

Published 15 December 2022