Jean Flick said she had been told “nothing can be done” to save her clifftop house
A pensioner whose clifftop home is at risk of tumbling into the sea says she’s been told nothing can be done to rescue it and is now facing demolition. Jean Flick, 88, who has called the seaside property in Thorpeness, Suffolk, home for 25 years, says she hopes to remain there as long as it’s safe.
“I’m just waiting in hope there’s no high tides,” said the widow, who comes from a farming background. “We had a hell of a good storm the other night but we’re still standing.”
Another property on her road was knocked down in 2022 but Ms Flick had held out hope that sea defences could be constructed at the base of the cliffs to halt the coastal erosion.
However, she said on Friday: “We were more or less told nothing will be done and we can’t do anything. We’ve had the chap round to look at the demolition, and… he says we’re more or less at the end. It’s a case of wait and see, hope the tides are not high and they’ll review it again in the new year.”
She explained she’d been informed that the equipment required to construct sea defences wouldn’t be able to reach the bottom of the cliffs. “It’s the fact they can’t get along basically I think to get to it,” said Ms Flick.
“They’ve got to come in down the bottom end and they can’t get along with the machinery. One of the things they’re saying is the machinery, the heavy machinery will damage the land coming up and they’re not happy with that so we’re more or less on our own and wait for the inevitable.”
When asked if she planned to stay as long as it was safe, she responded: “Yes, that’s what I’m hoping.”
She revealed that another portion of land had recently collapsed. She added: “You might see me in a caravan or a tent up on the common.”
After losing her first husband to cancer, Ms Flick remarried in 1999 and bought the Thorpeness home with her second husband for a fresh start. She said they were “very happy” there before her second husband also succumbed to cancer.
Ms Flick has been warned that if the cliff edge comes within five metres of the house, it will have to be demolished. She expressed her devastation at the thought, saying her “heart will just break” if that happens “because it’s my home”.
“Your home is gone and it’s just devastating really,” she lamented. The house, built in 1928, originally had five bedrooms but one was converted into a sitting room for the sea view.
The property is approximately two miles south of Sizewell, where a new nuclear power station is under construction. Ms Flick recalled how Storm Babet in 2023 “really ravaged” the cliffs.
The Shoreline Management Plan, developed by agencies including the Environment Agency and the local authority, advocates managed realignment for this stretch of coast. This implies that measures may be implemented to slow down, but not halt, the erosion.