Tuesday night's high tide and strong winds caused severe damage to Cromer lifeboat station's doors, trapping its lifesaving vessel. Luckily, the lifeboat station has another boat on standby, ready to be used from Cromer beach while work is carried out on the end of the pier station ready for when a new state-of-the-art boat arrives in October.

Tuesday night's high tide and strong winds caused severe damage to Cromer lifeboat station's doors, trapping its lifesaving vessel.

Luckily, the lifeboat station has another boat on standby, ready to be used from Cromer beach while work is carried out on the end of the pier station ready for when a new state-of-the-art boat arrives in October.

Richard Leeds, operations manager for Cromer lifeboat station, said: "Unfortunately it is one of those things we have to live with. The sea was too strong and it has just pushed the doors in.

"The bottom parts are big high doors, it is the next part of it, the top section which has been badly pushed in."

The same thing happened about two years ago, he added.

The crew has been trained to use another lifeboat, now stationed at the bottom of Cromer gangway on the edge of the beach. It has been brought in as a temporary replacement for when work is carried out on the pier-end lifeboat station.

The lifeboat station needs £750,000-£1m of alteration works so a new £2.5m Tamar class lifeboat, due at Cromer in October, can fit into it. The new boat's keel and hull are deeper than the outgoing Ruby and Arthur Reed II which has seen 21 years' service at Cromer.

The Ruby will leave Cromer for Poole in about a week, where it will be used as either a relief lifeboat or sold off.