About the project

Project Aim

The Somerset Coastal Change Pathfinder project has been established to assist coastal communities who are most at risk from issues associated with sea level rise and help them adapt to projected changes at the coast.

Key areas that have been identified include; Porlock Weir, Steart and Brean and Berrow. These areas have been highlighted as ‘hotspot’ areas via the North Devon & Somerset Shoreline Management Plan.

The SMP Policy regarding sea defences at each location recommends ‘No Active Intervention’. Considering this, the Pathfinder project aims to ensure the communities at each location increase their resilience to future environmental impacts linked to coastal change.

Project Objectives and Outputs

To achieve this aim, the project will raise awareness in the key coastal locations within Somerset. The project will provide ideas for potential initiatives that will help engage the local communities, but overall the project will be community led. The project will continually be open, transparent and welcomes input from the community.

Outputs that will help engage local communities include:

An interactive timeline highlighting key events throughout Somerset’s history that have affected the shape of the coastline.

Development of a scenario for Porlock Weir following a major storm event. This aims to bring home the message of vulnerability of coastal communities to the sea. The scenario will have input from key community figures to ensure accuracy.

Establishment of a Community Coastal Team. This initiative has not formally been named and the project team will be looking to the communities to come up with an appropriate name. The scheme will be composed of three main segments:

  • The historical archiving of local people’s knowledge and experience of changes at the coast. This could include old photographs showing how an area has changed throughout time, stories of how the industry has changed in the area and so on.
  • Coastal monitoring of day-to-day changes at the coast. Anyone can contribute to this segment; it would require a photograph being taken from the same location, focusing on the same feature on a regular basis. Over time, the subtle changes that occur following each tide or storm event could be documented into a powerful tool that can be used to show how dynamic the coastline really is.
  • Building resilience within the community. Using the information gathered from the first two segments, it is hoped that an Action Plan can be formulated that outlines to local residents useful procedures to follow in the event of a flood.

Project Funding and Administration

The CCP project is 100% Defra-funded, which Somerset County Council bid for on behalf of partners in Somerset. Partner organisations on the steering group include; The National Trust, Exmoor National Park, Environment Agency, Sedgemoor District Council, West Somerset District Council and Natural England. Further to these organisations, the project will have representatives from each identified coastal area to ensure communities’ concerns and needs are fully communicated throughout the project.

Part of the funding is being provided to the Environment Agency to enhance the community engagement aspect of the Steart Coastal Management Project. This is a large scale project which has it’s own website and community engagement team.

The Coastal Change Pathfinder project began in December 2009 and will run until June 2011. During this short time the costs and benefits of differing methods will be evaluated and reported to Defra.  Along the way lessons will be learned and shared with the other 15 CCP projects that will be running in parallel throughout England.