\n The yard has been used by the fishermen for decades (Image: Submitted)\n<\/p>\n
\n But Jason Clarke, who is the third generation of his family to fish, has hit back at these claims, instead blaming a burst water main and exceptionally high levels of rainfall for the flooding issues.\n<\/p>\n
\n To support this, he has photographs of Anglian Water engineers in the midst of fixing a burst main.\n<\/p>\n
\n A burst water main caused large volumes of water to spill out (Image: Jason Clarke)\n<\/p>\n
\n In addition, the months of January and February 2024, when some of the flooding is reported to have happened, were among the wettest on record.\n<\/p>\n
\n The long periods of torrential rain caused problems with persistent high groundwater levels in many parts of the country, including the Broads and along the eastern coast.\n<\/p>\n
\n Homes along the Marrams in Sea Palling (Image: Google)\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Clarke said: “It was the wettest January and February on record and we also had this burst water main next to their house.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It feels disingenuous. I don’t see how you can blame a few fishing boats for that.\n<\/p>\n
\n “This is my livelihood. We have been fishing here since the late 19th century.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It is becoming quite a bitter battle.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Richard Clarke, a third generation fisherman (Image: Jack Warren, Newsquest)\n<\/p>\n
\n The fishermen are currently waiting for North Norfolk District Council to make a decision on a planning application, which is seeking retrospective permission for the expansion at the yard.\n<\/p>\n
\n The dispute emerged after the Skinner family, which own several properties behind the yard, complained about being disturbed by the “intensification” at the site.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Clarke added he was confused why the family would seek to purchase another property in the Marrams recently, if they had flooding concerns.\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite the dispute, the fisherman said they had been “humbled” by the outpouring of support for them from the local community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Clarke family, who have fished the waters off Sea Palling for more than a century, are currently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-362713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}