EROSION AT EASTBOURNE

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 50, 28 August 1934, Page 8

EROSION AT EASTBOURNE

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Tho serious increase in the erosion at Eastbourne during last weekend should have the effect of making the citizens of that borough realiso the importance of taking action to deal with the menace. The sea has been making headway during the past three or four years, but the erosion is evidently becoming progressively worse, for many of the properties have been more- seriously damaged during the past three months than in the previous three yeals. The danger is a threat not only to the sea-front properties but to the whole borough. The sandhills act as a breakwater for the southern end of the township, and the hills aro now almost pierced through at the centre of the eroded area.

The council has had the matter under consideration for some time, and in recent weeks some rock has been collected for the making of a temporary wall. Apparently delay has been caused by a shortage of unemployed men in the borough. Surely it should be possible to arrange for a sufficient supply of labour to carry on a work of such manifest urgency, where property to the value of thousands of pounds is at stake. During the past few years a strip aboit* 20 feet to 30 feet in depth has been shorn off the seafront for half a mile, and if this process continues it must seriously affect both the rating value and the attractions of Muritai.

It is evident that the council should proceed rapidly with the temporary wall (an' extension of Professor BoydWilson's wall) to give protection to | the sections most seriously affected — I those that were sold by the Borough Council a few years ago and whero the "dwellings are now standing on the elift'-edge. It is also time to seriously consider the early construction of the long-planned concrete wall from the Recreation Ground to the southern end of the beach. This would cost soveral thousand pounds, but it would be an excellent investment, and would make the Muritai seafront as safe and attractive as that at Oriental Bay. The money spent on such a wall would be mainly labour-costs, and even tho cost of the cement required would stimulate -employment and would all be circulated in the, Dominion. On this account the' Borough Council ought to be able to securo tho co-operation of tho I Unemployment Board and the Public i'AVorks Department. A point worthy of note is that protective works will cost no more this year than next year or the year after, but if delay occurs the erosion _ and consequent property wastages arc likely to continue month by month. Al-' though heavy southerly weather caused the recent damage, strong northerly gales arc likely also to cause 'trouble, '••»d there can bo no assurance that the iica-s.li is now safe until next winter. — I am, etc., A STITCH. IN TIME. .