‘Sleepless nights’ for Norfolk man as garden falls into sea

Lance Martin’s beachside property sits on top of fast-eroding dune

Martin stands in the back garden of his home in Hemsby, Norfolk, where his back door is now no more than 20ft from the cliff edge (PA)

A former soldier has spoken of the sleepless nights he is experiencing due to the increasing erosion of the Norfolk dune his home sits on.

The foundations of Lance Martin’s property in Hemsby, Norfolk, were first undermined by the Beast from the East in 2018 – which, he said, caused almost 100ft (30m) of sand dune to disappear – and more recently harsh winds on Easter Sunday have further taken a toll.

The 63-year-old estimated that he lost up to 20ft from the bottom of the dune and more than 6ft from the top over the bank holiday.

As a result, Mr Martin’s back door is now no more than 20ft from the cliff edge, despite the fact he was told in 2017 – when he bought the coastal property for £95,000 – to expect 3ft of dune loss per year to erosion.

“Because I could actually see what was going on it stressed me out a lot more,” he told the PA news agency, recalling seeing parts of his garden fall into the sea.

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“Normally I’m a sound sleeper but I think I got about 10 minutes’ sleep [on Sunday] night.”

The ex-serviceman said that because the waves were so “huge”, and were “crashing down into the base of the dunes”, he was forced to rush across the road to a friend’s house and ask him to help take down a garden fence and move a shed.

“It was dropping constantly,” he said.

Explaining what happens when the dune begins to fall away, Mr Martin said: “The waves nibble at the base of the dune and you don’t really see how far it’s cut in as you’re looking down on it, then all of a sudden part of the dune will just drop away.”

He added: “You don’t get any warning, no noise or anything.”

Mr Martin has now mounted a solar light on a piece of plastic pipe, and put it into the top of the dune, as means of tracking how quick the dune is eroding.

Martin stands outside the front of his home in Hemsby (PA)

“I can sit on my sofa at night-time, look through the window and see that light shining,” he said. “And I know that if the light’s not shining, the dune’s collapsed even more and that’ll give me a warning that something’s going on.”

He added he would likely have to seek safety at a neighbour’s house if that did ever happen.

Mr Martin served in the Grenadier Guards from 1978 to 2000 and moved to the coast after he retired from his security job and sold his flat in Dagenham, east London.

His home is the last remaining from an original row of 13 houses when he moved in four years ago.

Mr Martin said the local lifeboat crew has offered to help him rearrange his 75 two-tonne concrete block sea defences, which are intended to break the force of the waves but have become buried by the sand.

He also wants to make the dune “terraced”, with a shallower angle to the beach, and appealed for any heavy plant operators with “spare time and spare machinery to come down and give us a hand”.

Martin’s home is the last remaining from an original row of 13 houses (PA)

Additionally, there is is a “Plan Z”, as Mr Martin called it, which is to drag the entire property to a vacant plot across the road, further inland. Although he “really doesn’t want” it to come to that.

“I’ve kind of made a stand here that I intend to keep on going as long as physically and mentally possible,” he said.

Hemsby Lifeboat’s coxswain Daniel Hurd said members of his crew will, this weekend, attempt to “buy some time” for Mr Martin by repositioning his temporary sea defences and the sand around his home.

“We are very grateful for the support we get from the locals to help fund our independent lifeboat and so we all feel compelled to offer them support in return,” Mr Hurd told The Independent.

“I am very proud to be part of this crew and cannot praise them enough for their desire to help Lance [Martin] and ease the pressure he must be feeling at this time, even if it is just a little.”

Additional reporting by PA