Mainly that they have properties that are worth £0 - many people affected by poor fire cladding are in the same boat.
In the case of the cladding people had no control over what was installed and as well as having worthless properties they are often being asked to stump up thousands for repairs or interim (frequently ineffective) measures. If we had a government that cared homeowners would be protected from the poor decisions made by their landlords; but we don’t, we have a government that would rather protect the landlords and let the home owners suffer.
In the case of coastal properties I could find myself having a smidge less sympathy, depending on when the property was bought as coastal erosion in Norfolk is hardly a new phenomenon, but you are right - some of these properties were 100’s of metres away from the coast when built.
In the case of Norfolk it has been a conscious decision in some places as they often merely push erosion along the coast rather than prevent it completely.
One can’t help but wonder why sea defences weren’t built, but it’s a bit late now.
They were, it was called The themes Barrage to protect London, but why waste money on the rest of the country, as apposed to the Dutch who saw the light in 1953 and have been very active since 1966 protecting there people and property.
In to days press there is a brand new 17 story block of flats been built on the bank of the River Avon . The bank has slipped exposing the foundations upse.
One of the problems is the indifference? / stupidity? / corruption? in local councils.
I grew up in and around Leatherhead which is on the River Mole. It occasionally does this.
There is a reason why the land to the right of the photo has no properties on it - it is floodplain.
This photo I think was probably 1968. In more recent years the council gave permission for a developer to build flats on the right bank. The ground floor was garage space - sensible - but still not a happy experience for the owners of the flats whose cars were damaged. I blame the council for giving permission in the first place.
About 15 years ago, one of our clients built a substantial new office in the flood plain of a river to the South East of London, all passed and stamped by the local planning department.
Within 4 weeks of moving in there was a period of heavy rain and the entire car park and ground floor were flooded causing huge damage to the expensive electronics and staff vehicles.
Two interesting points:
They were a wholly-owned subsidiary of an insurance company
Their insurance policy did not cover against flood damage
If I rember correctly, by about 1600CE around 40% of the total area of the Netherlands consisted of land ‘reclaimed’ from the sea and, apart from its coastal sand dunes, the entire country had already become farmland. One of the origins of the english word landscape is landskip, a small C16th Dutch painting of farmland.
The other root which links landscape with terroir and heritage (rather than merely the visual) was a mediaeval Danish parliament made up of freemen who owned land.
Incidentally our house is just a few metres from the waters of the Lot, but it was built on a hard schist outcrop that will probably last a few more millennia
Secrecy I suppose. It’s still a pretty bleak area. This was the development site. The launch sites were on the west coast. There’s a very big one on the French coast that’s worth a visit.
