Coasting

How much is a sea view worth?

I have often been asked that question in the course of my Professional work as a Valuer.

This regular quizzing goes with the territory that I cover which includes some of the most breathtaking and dramatic stretches of coastline in the UK. Take the magnificent beaches and cliffs of North Yorkshire from the river inlet at Saltsend to the towering cliffs at Ravenscar. In between are the bustling whaling Port of Whitby and a precariously perched Robin Hoods Bay.

Southwards there are the twin sweeping bays of Scarborough, overlooked by the ruins of the Castle and then down to the genteel Filey. Bempton Cliffs are amongst some of the highest in Britain, a mass of nesting migratory birds. From the chalk headland of Flamborough towards the traditional resort town of Bridlington there is a distinct change in the scenery where the sea meets the land.

The sometimes dazzling chalk gives way to lower, squat cliffs in boulder clay, which run all of the way down to the fickle and transitory Spurn Point at the mouth of the Humber Estuary.

There lies the problem. Boulder Clays.

These originate from the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age having been bulldozed along under the vast, slow moving ice sheet from many distant locations. At their heart, the boulder clays are not to be relied upon as either sound or sturdy.

It is a geographical anomaly that there are, between the Esk at Whitby and the Humber no actual rivers or notable watercourses discharging into the North Sea. If there had been such features then there would be a likelihood of silts and deposits washing out and then transported southwards in a bolstering and reinforcing effect to the shoreline.

The absence of alluvial material means that the relentless drive of the sea strips away and erodes the cliffs with little resistance possible.

The boulder clays are also prone to softening and slumping when saturated by surface water.

The two pronged attack by the elements and tides has, since the documented record of the 1086 Domesday Book led to sections of the East Yorkshire coastline receding by three miles, or at the break-neck pace of 1 mile every three hundred years or so.

I was talking just this week to the owner of a cliff top caravan park at Ulrome, just to the south of Bridlington on the boulder clays. He manages a diminishing business as he loses three metres of his static pitches at a time, not per year, but seemingly at the whim of nature.

This has prompted the Local Authority to allow him permission for a caravan site in an inland area where this had previously been denied so that the current location can be abandoned shortly.

I have worked along the coast for the last thirty years. It was a nice treat in a busy day to pull in at a clifftop cafe for a quick cuppa and enjoy the view out to sea but two of my regular establishments have long since been undermined and toppled the 5 metres down onto the beach.

Other properties are still at risk of going the same way but with little prospect of financial assistance if owners have the misfortune of living on a part of the coastline which is not strategic enough to be defended. It would be inconceivable if purchased some 30 years ago that a holiday home, seasonal let or retirement bungalow then a few fields away from the lovely beach would one day actually contribute to the composition of pebbles and sand.

There are some specific sections of the boulder clay cliffs that the Environment Agency have designated as a priority for protection.

I stood rather whimsically on the clifftop two days ago just on the northern edge of the town of Hornsea.

I had just run my tape measure from the living room window of a sea-front bungalow to the position of a low picket fence on the edge of the vertical drop onto the beach.

Mine was a repeat exercise that I had done about 10 years ago for a property in the same cul de sac location.

A faded page in an old notebook was consulted.

There was no difference in the measurement at all over the intervening years.

I was pleased with myself for what would pass as a bit of Professionalism in my work and no doubt impress my clients who were considering buying the bungalow.

The current owners had watched me nervously from the window. I was fully expecting that old question about the value of a sea view . Perhaps more to the point I prepared myself to recount to them what was certainly the good news that, for the time being, the bungalow was stable and saleable.

In surveying that scene on a calm, bright day I provided a definitive answer to that old chestnut of a question; the infinity effect of the cliff top garden above the North Sea, remained priceless.