Environment Agency ‘throwing kitchen sink’ at Torcross ‘problem’published at 18:28 GMT
18:28 GMT
Zhara Simpson
BBC South West
George Arnison from the Environment Agency (EA) says the company is “throwing the kitchen sink” to fix storm damage at Torcross.
He said the EA saw this as an emergency and that communities, authorities, and society as a whole were feeling the pressure.
“We’re throwing the kitchen sink at this problem now,” he said.
Arnison says the fundamental problem is the “very sudden and severe loss of the beach” which has left the bottom of the sea defence exposed to the waves.
“We’re trying to do now is to mitigate from the
loss of the beach and replace what used to be beach, now air, with rock armour,” he said.
“We are really trying to do that at pace – ideally before next winter’s storms
and that’s a real challenge.”
Discussions are ongoing around finances, but he feels confident there will be a clearer plan soon.
“Then we’re in a whole world of engineering
challenges, how do we work here with inter-tidal conditions, the weather, we
have to get rock here from far away.
“There’s a lot of challenges, but we are
doing everything we possibly can to meet that challenge.”