A house stands near the edge of a cliff at Beach Road, Happisburgh, north-east Norfolk. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
Plans for a wide-scale evacuation of Britain's eroding coastline have been revealed by the Independent in an interview with the new head of the Environment Agency, Lord Smith of Finsbury.
Parts of the east and south coast will not be protected from erosion for much longer, he predicted.
"We will begin to talk with communities where we think defence is not a viable option", he said.
Smith's remarks will not surprise many living on the Norfolk coast, where the debate about whether the sea should be left to its own devices is already live and lively.
But the former cabinet minister, who now chairs both the Environment Agency and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), was pretty blunt in disclosing the agency's projections of where sea erosion will do most damage over the next five, 25, 50 and 100 years.
Do you think he's right to take such precautions? If you live in a threatened coastal area, is it something you worry about? Have you tried to sell your property or are you happy to let nature take its course?
While promising to do his "level best" to try to defend communities where "there are significant numbers of properties under threat and where it's possible to find engineering solutions", Smith warns: "We are almost certainly not going to be able to defend absolutely every bit of coast - it would simply be an impossible task both in financial terms and engineering terms."
Next year, the agency will publish details of the work done on specific coastal threats, he said.
Meanwhile, as the ASA boss, Smith tells MediaGuardian about concerns over a sharp rise in environmental claims made for goods and services.
"The raison d'etre for the ASA is that companies can make the best possible claims for their product, but not mislead people. I absolutely don't want to discourage them from doing so - the more that companies think seriously about the environmental impact of their products the better. But what they mustn't do is pretend a product is greener than it is."
