West Hill Road Landslide –Whose Responsibility?
HUGH SULLIVAN
On Sunday 5 November, after days of heavy rain, there was a slide of rock, debris and mud down the slope below West Hill Road that affected one or more properties on the Marina road below.
East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service (ESFRS) were summoned in the early afternoon to assist. They say they provided safety advice to residents of Marina, and contacted a scaffolding company whose poles were being affected.
Seven hours later, at around 9pm, there were reports of a further landslide affecting properties at both the top and the bottom. A structural engineer attended the site, and a police drone and helicopter were called in to help assess what was occurring.
Residents were briefly evacuated from 11 properties in West Hill Road, according to an ESFRS spokesperson, though most were swiftly invited to return. Two properties, understood to be at No 61, were still apparently vacated at the time of going to press.
There is a distance of over 50 yards down the slope between these properties and the back yards or gardens of Marina below. This cross-section of land is covered in dense scrub, though the slope immediately below No 61 is gouged bare as if by watercourses. The whole area has a history of instability arising from its geology of sandstone layered with silts and clays. The risk of landslides and mud flows increases with water penetration.
A footpath known as Sussex Steps, which formerly ran down through the area from West Hill Road to Caves Road, collapsed in 2002 and has never been reinstated. Further east, a memorial garden containing a burial tomb for James Burton, founder of St Leonards two centuries ago, has subsided and remains closed to the public.
Most of the area below West Hill Road is designated as Caves Road Cliffs local wildlife site (though, apart from rabbits, it’s not clear what zoological life enjoys the terrain). But who, if anyone, owns it? A spokesperson for Hastings Borough Council stated last week that the council is not the owner and “so has advised residents directly affected to contact their insurers or landlord for further specialist investigation”.
It seems frankly unlikely that any buildings insurers that have carried out due diligence on the potential risks will still be offering cover. Many substantial buildings on the south side of West Hill Road have been long abandoned – Gambia House and West House, in particular. Others cling on with apparent fatalism: No 65A has adopted as its property address ‘Cliffhanger’.
One exception, however, is a five-storey residential building erected within the last four years at No 59A. Planning permission was granted for this in December 2018, subject to a condition that “development shall not commence until a full and adequate Land Stability and Soils Report has been submitted and approved and measures taken”. This report concluded that risks of subsidence could be minimised by using a piled foundation system and erecting a retaining wall in order to protect any garden to the rear. The property was duly built . No one seems to have been required to consider whether the building might affect land stability below the property.
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Thanks for an honest report on the landslip, I hope everyone has been able to return home safely. Guess what GB News said about it –
“Several homes have fallen into a crevice.”
Final proof that they should not be allowed to describe themselves as a news channel!