Hemsby beach houses devastated by Storm Ciara

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A family who live on the verge of an eroding coast were given an offer to abandon their roots after their house was swept into the sea. Derek Dunn, 62, said it was “beyond a joke” that all the council offered him a council house several miles away from where he had lived for 15 years.

Mr Dunn lived with his late wife in the three-bedroom bungalow in Tunstall, a village in Holderness in Yorkshire and a hotspot for coastal erosion.

Instead of moving away to a completely different area, he wanted to build a £100,000 bungalow on a meadow bought by his late father that was a little more inland.

East Riding Council offers people living in Holderness the chance to relocate their properties away from the coastline as part of its Rollback scheme. However, the council does not offer people funding to help people buy land or build new property.

He said: “A lot of people think the council or Government helps you when something like this happens but they do not.

“I even had to pay two lots of council tax even though I showed an official around my old house and he saw it was derelict. There were not even any flood boards.

“It was beyond a joke. All the council offered me was a council house on a housing estate in a two miles away. I have lived here since I was a kid so why would I want to live anywhere else?”

Mr Dunn managed to get planning permission after six years of trying but the new build had to be made from wood so it can be easily taken down.

The meadow is also on agricultural land, which explains the long wait for planning permission.

Close to his new bungalow is his mother Maureen Dunn, 81. Her house is covered in damp because of structural damage caused by erosion on the coastal area.

The Dunn’s are one of many families whose homes are at risk of sliding into the North Sea. It is estimated £600million worth of buildings will fall into the sea by the end of this century. Properties in Holderness will be some of the first to be dashed away.

Maureen, whose husband died three years ago, said she has “no idea” how long she has left in the area. She added that it all rests on the weather and coastal erosion.

When she first moved into the house, she had an entire field between her and the sea, she said.

The family plan to also build her a wooden bungalow next to her son’s.

Maureen said she has lived at her property for 52 years. In that time, her husband tried to install groynes to keep the sand back and hold the cliff but she claims nothing was done about it.

She refuses to do anything about cracks which are growing the property because that would be a “waste of money”.

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