England has some of the fastest eroding coastlines in Europe. Unlike flooding, there is no insurance product for coastal erosion – and no compensation when land is lost. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
For buyers near the coast, getting the right searches in place isn’t optional. Lets step away from the cliff ledge and discuss erosion in five minutes.
What is coastal erosion?
The gradual or sudden loss of land at the shoreline through waves, tides, and weather, accelerated significantly by climate change and rising sea levels. The most at-risk areas include East Yorkshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, the Isle of Wight, and parts of the South West.
Soft cliffs can lose several metres in a single storm. Chalk cliffs erode more slowly but collapse without warning. Sandy coastlines shift constantly. Ground instability can affect land well back from the cliff edge.
How big is the risk?
In January 2025, the Environment Agency published an updated National Coastal Erosion Risk Map (NCERM), the first to incorporate climate change projections. The numbers are significant:
- Around 25,000 residential properties at risk of loss by 2055 under current conditions
- Up to 115,000 properties at risk by 2105 under worst-case climate projections
- Even with Shoreline Management Plans fully implemented, around 40,000 properties remain at risk to 2105
Shoreline Management Plans: the key concept to understand
England’s coastline is divided into policy units under 20 Shoreline Management Plans (SMPs). Each unit is assigned one of four approaches:
- Hold the Line: existing defences maintained
- Advance the Line: new defences built seaward (rare)
- Managed Realignment: controlled retreat, often creating new habitat
- No Active Intervention: no defence investment; shoreline evolves naturally
The critical point: these policies can change across three planning epochs – short (to 2025), medium (to 2055) and long term (to 2105). A property in a ‘Hold the Line’ zone today may transition to ‘No Active Intervention’ within a buyer’s lifetime. That shift has profound implications for long-term value, mortgageability, and saleability.
How does this appear in property searches?
Coastal erosion risk is not covered by the standard CON29. It is captured through an environmental search, which will draw on NCERM data to show:
- whether the property is within an identified erosion risk zone
- risk across short, medium and long-term horizons
- the applicable SMP policy and epoch changes
- any ground instability or landslip risk
Where Coastal Change Management Areas (CCMAs) have been designated by a local authority, these may also appear in the LLC search – restricting future development in zones where coastal change is anticipated.
Coastal erosion is irreversible, uninsurable, and accelerating. For any property near the coast, a standard local authority search alone won’t tell the full story – an environmental search capturing the latest NCERM data is essential.
Helping clients understand not just today’s risk, but how that risk may evolve over the life of their ownership, is one of the most valuable things a conveyancer can do for a buyer purchasing near the coast.
