Bournemouth coast is at ‘real risk’ from landfill sites polluting onto the beach and sea.
Over 1,200 landfill sites across the UK are in danger of polluting the coastline. With 75% of the coastal landfill sites are adjacent to at least one environmentally designated feature, according to LGA Coastal Special Interest Group & Coastal Group Network.
The National Local Government Association Coastal Special Interest group, launched a survey last summer nationally to find out some of the key challenges for local authorities.
There is a threat to our local beach and waters, according to coastal policy expert, Mark Stratton.
He said: “If there’s public use, there’s a potential impact on human health. And lots of people are aware of these risks, it’s just pushing up the government agenda to try and secure funding to act at sites that are at a higher-level of risk.
“There is a real risk that those 12 to 14 hundred sites nationally, all start to erode out into the natural environment. Then you have a significant diffuse cumulative pollution impact, that’s the concern that we all have.”
Whilst the government has reviewed their coastal and erosion flooding policy, Stratton change cannot be achieved without funding at local level.
“We have policies in place that say, we should be holding the line at these locations. But we’ve struggled locally to secure the funding in order to deliver coastal management schemes,”
He added: “there’s a growing risk if you like, locally and nationally that these sites begin too fail, the defences begin to fail and they erode out onto internationally designated natural environments.”
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