A multi-million pound plan to protect the coastline near a popular leisure resort has been approved.

Potters Leisure Resort will cover the full cost of the £3m scheme to build new rock groynes and add protection to the sea wall along an area of beach which the site backs on to.

The plans were unanimously approved by the Development Control Committee at Great Yarmouth Borough Council tonight.

Voicing his support for the project, borough councillor George Jermany, said: 'We have been waiting for a scheme like this for ages. With a private company paying for it, I say do not cut your hand off that feeds you.'

A spokesman for Potters declined to comment on the application.

The once wide sandy beach at Hopton has been subjected to significant erosion in recent years.

The current defences are being degraded, and without improvements there is a risk the sea wall could be undermined and the soft cliffs behind could collapse.

Under the proposals large rock deliveries from Scandinavia will be brought to the beach by a flat-topped barge and deposited in 'dump zones' and moved into place by diggers.

A similar project has been built at Bourne Leisure resort, north of the Potters site, at a cost of around £8m.

More than 80,000 tonnes of Norwegian granite was shipped in and piled up to create 10 new rock groynes.

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