Sea level rise in England will force 200,000 to abandon homes, data shows

11 comments
  1. In Wales at least the houses near they are still selling new builds near our bay for a huge chunk of change. Seems stulid to me.

  2. I agree with the article that frank discussions need to be had, starting now. There are certainly some areas where no protections will ever be built and those living in these areas need to know that they are living in a home that will depreciate faster than average.

    It affects however less than 1% of U.K. homes over a thirty year period so the economic cost is easily manageable if there is the will.

  3. > The study comes after warnings last week from the head of the Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan, that many homes would be impossible or uneconomic to save, and whole communities would have to move inland, which he called “the hardest of all inconvenient truths”.

    One that, even those in those communities themselves, will be ignored for decades. You won’t get people to make the lifestyle changes needed to limit climate change and they won’t want to pay for vital defences could help them keep their homes. People are happy to either bury their heads in the sands or live like today is their last day on Earth with respect to climate change. Expecting people to make those big changes until the last minute is a big ask when the past few decades has shown us that people do not feel any sense of urgency with respect to climate change.

  4. I reckon this is gonna be the new cladding scandal.

    These properties are predicted to be economically “unsalveagable” in ~30 years, which is a normal mortgage term in the UK.

    Banks are risk-averse towards anything that may impair the value within the next century – they won’t lend on leasehold flats with less than 85 years left, they won’t lend on anything with Japanese knotweed or suspected subsidance.

    Given the resale value of these properties may well be zero *within the mortgage term*, I strongly suspect the banks are gonna wake up to this and the properties will become unmortgagable soon.

    I cannot believe banks will continue to lend against these things when they’re much more flighty about lesser risks. And once one bank moves to make them unmortgagable, I think there will be a domino-effect of headlines and panic sales and half of the loss in value will happen very quickly.

  5. Abandoned homes? Where are they and can I have one. I can accept the downstairs carpet smelling of fish and being wet, I will just stay upstairs.

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