Gap abandoned

Money-wise, as is well known, it is a bottomless pit and a line must be drawn somewhere. The problem then is, if you live or work in the Climping area or it’s your favourite bit of beach, you don’t want it drawn round there!

As regards the continuing of work at Pagham, I suspect that aspects of Mr Dunne’s recent letter apply – many of the West Sussex County and Arun District councillors who voted for the Environment Agency plans to abandon Climping live much nearer Pagham than Climping.

From my observations, it seems that the Climping Gap has already been abandoned by the Environment Agency (EA). Some reinforcement of the shingle bank protecting mostly Baliffscourt Hotel was done recently, but the digger did not then move to the section immediately east of the beach car park.

Here, it seems to me, that a minor repair to one of the groynes and only a few truckloads of shingle moved back from West Beach are needed now to stop the sea sweeping away the embankment in the near future (it has been seeping through it for years). It has already come very close to that in recent relatively mild storms.

The shingle required from West Beach will otherwise continue to move eastwards, contributing to blocking the Littlehampton harbour mouth, which local council taxpayers, not central government, will be paying to keep open – no doubt, no matter from whose budget, a greater expense than the savings from abandoning Climping.

The farmer at Climping has not this year planted out with a winter crop a significant strip of land in the fields immediately behind the beach, towards the A259, which says to me that he has planned for it to flood this winter – because the EA have told him so?

If I’ve got any of this wrong, the EA should now please tell us.

John Morris

Maltravers Drive

Littlehampton