£3m coastal pathfinder project, designed to help those affected by coastal erosion. Delegates taking a walking tour around areas of Happisburgh.

More funding is needed if trailblazing work protecting the coastline is to continue and be rolled out across the country was the message from a two-day conference looking at how successful projects around the coastline in North Norfolk have been.

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Leading figures from the Environment Agency and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who have a say on coastal policies and flooding, are in North Norfolk this week looking at the work which has taken place as part of North Norfolk District Council’s Coastal Pathfinder projects.

The council was awarded £3m in 2009 from the government’s pathfinder programme to explore ways of helping coastal communities plan and adapt to coastal change.

Pathfinder projects so far have included the striking of deal to compensate those whose homes are perched on the edge of Happisburgh’s crumbling cliff.

On Monday the delegates visited the various pathfinder sites, including the cliff tops at Happisburgh, to view the properties on Beach Road at risk of falling into the sea because of coastal erosion.

They were also informed of pathfinder funded plans to move Happisburgh’s car park from Beach Road to another cliff top site to the east, and create a toilet block, and a shop or kiosk, and also clear debris off the beach.

Clive Stockton, NNDC cabinet member for coastal strategy, said: “The whole idea of these two days is that we spread the word about the pathfinder projects we have implemented and use that to lobby for the pathfinder programme to be continued with further funding.

“We want the government to see there has been a real value in it, so we are going to lobby that point and also lobby for pathfinder to be made a national policy.”

The delegates also visited other pathfinder funded projects including the re-opening of The Marrams footpath, a vital link between Cromer’s Runton Road car park and the Melbourne beach access slope, which was closed in January 2007 following a cliff slip. The path has been successfully re-routed and is now safe to use.

Ian Bliss from the Environment Agency said: “What this has shown is how really effective the partnership has been between the district council and engaging with the community.”

Speaking about if lessons could be learned for other places facing coastal erosion he said each place had to be looked at on a “case by case” basis.

Peter Moore, environment policy group manager at Dorset County Council, which has been awarded £376,000 in pathfinder money, said: “We are looking to learn lessons from North Norfolk and have been inspired by what we have seen, particularly in terms of the beach debris clearing and the work looking at moving the caravan park in Happisburgh to another location.

“The aim of all of this is to get people interested in coastal change who have not been interested before and also hopefully get further funding for the pathfinder programme.”

Today the delegates will attend a series of talks and will discuss the merits or otherwise of the various projects, particularly looking at how the successes may influence government coastal policy in the future.

On Monday, the district council’s cabinet also agreed to support the scheme to relocate the coastal village’s Beach Road car park and transfer ownership and management of the car park, and new public toilets which will be built in it, to Happisburgh Parish Council.

They also supported plans to replace the nine cliff-edge homes on Beach Road, soon to be demolished, and to give officers authority to agree terms on a suitable village site or sites for the replacements which would be built on about 0.8 of an acre of farmland.