Representation by Alde and Ore Community Partnership (Alde and Ore Community Partnership)
- Date submitted
- 29 September 2020
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
The Alde and Ore Community Partnership is the guardian of the Estuary Plan for the estuary communities of the Alde and Ore area. The Partnership now involves the whole community, with every parish bordering the rivers having a seat on the Partnership, together with a County Councillor, two District Councillors, as well as business, local Internal Drainage Board and amenity organisation (Alde and Ore Association) representation. The £26 million Plan was developed to ensure that even in 2050 and taking account of sea level rise the river wall flood defences would be resilient to a 1:200 surge and so protect the area. Implementation has begun. The main concern is the potential damage from un-assessed adverse changes on coastal processes to the estuary and its local economy by loss of shingle on the shoreline or changed currents, both from sea flooding via the town of Aldeburgh and directly the configuration and life of the coastal shingle bank of the estuary. The Sizewell C DCO application is silent on the coastal evolution south of the Great Sizewell Bay, when the Bay is but one part of the Suffolk coast geomorphological unit, despite the fact that the proposed construction will eventually jut out beyond the natural shoreline and will involve shingle recycling. The Alde and Ore Estuary is the centre of a local economy worth over £100 million a year. Were there to be damage to the unique long shingle bank, Orfordness, caused by manmade interruption of the natural coastal processes at Sizewell, the area would be greatly harmed. Consequently AOCP would like to see in the application scientific assessments of the impact of the proposed construction on the fragile but dynamic coast south of Sizewell and provision for long-term monitoring and mitigation.