West Sussex residents in Climping fear losing their homes due to the beach eroding quickly.
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00:00The sea wants to erode our beach and end up the other side of the A259.
00:05We're quite helpless really, we just hope it's put off long enough for us to live here.
00:11I'm Henry, Henry Burrell and I own this plot here and we bought it as a ruin in 92
00:18and it used to be a farm for Bailiff's Court Hotel and we've restored most of it
00:27and that's where we live but unfortunately we're not going to live for much longer.
00:34According to nature we're going to get flooded, not only just flooded, we're going to get
00:39swept away by the sea. We've been flooded a few times and
00:42we can cope with that. We put a lot of our heart and soul into this and it's beautiful. I mean
00:48to us most of the time we've been here it's been paradise but unfortunately in paradise
00:52is sometimes a serpent and we've got a serpent and that's the sea and we can't be crossed with
01:03Neptune, it's life you know. The sea wants to erode our beach and end up the other side of the
01:10A259 and produce a big bay and we just hope it's put off long enough for us to live here.
01:18We're quite helpless really. Our wealth is our property and it was
01:24valued at one and a half, two million pounds a while ago and we've put it up for sale and
01:33estate agents had a lot of interest in our property and they came and had a look and
01:41spoke to the environment agency. They found that we are what they call a category three
01:46at risk property, they'll run away. So the estate agent's given our house keys back and said that
01:52we're unsaleable so in fact we can't afford another house. So we're just staying here as
01:58long as we can. It'll cost millions of pounds now to protect the beach. It could have been
02:05saved early on when they first started to erode the beach but it's much too late now.
02:14So I went to Arran District Council and said we're going to lose our home at some point
02:21because of the sea and can you put anything in place? They said oh no you've got to have lost
02:26your house first. Not a very nice prospect but we started to sell off our possessions in order to
02:36perhaps buy a second-hand camper van which is an interesting adventure when you're in the 80s.
02:44My name is Gary Love. Clinton Beach is as well you can probably see from your photographs has
02:51been destroyed, totally and utterly destroyed. The problem for Henry is that they're old, older
02:58and no one cares about them. So you go to meetings at Parish Council and everybody will say oh it's
03:04terrible, it's terrible, it's terrible. They can't sleep at night. I've got four or five listed
03:08buildings down there and they are dilapidated. So I bought it as a ruin effectively and we have
03:14been unable as you can probably tell to get any trucks there. So we spend a significant amount of
03:20time bringing vehicles backwards and forwards. My vehicles with trailers, dumpers, all sorts of
03:26to try and get the materials out there but it's impossible to do the build. We've been on it now
03:31since 2017. So it's taken all that time, seven years to not finish it. It's not finished. Nowhere near.