0 a low wall built out from the coast into the sea, to prevent the repeated movement of the waves from removing parts of the land --
If you remove any projection into the sea, whether a sluice, or a groyne, or a pier, it may have a tremendous effect on your coast protection scheme.
If we improve a piece of sea wall here, or put a new groyne in there, the effect is apparent further down the coast.
In the past we have seen local authorities who, for economy reasons, spent £1,000 on erecting a groyne or sea wall.
The result was that during those periods the groynes disappeared and the concrete foundations of the ramparts against the sea were undermined and collapsed.
The old works which had been removed were groynes which had been sunk in concrete in the foreshore properly faced.
The second option is to continue rebuilding hard engineering structures, such as groynes and sea walls.
No one person can evaluate replacing hard engineering walls and groynes.
In the last two years we shall have spent nearly £2 million on cliff stabilisation and beach and groyne repairs.