I wish to return to the question that initially motivated my walk – what makes life liveable when time loses its grip and the ground crumbles? To walk from Great Yarmouth to Cromer is also to recognise a familiar refrain. What repeats across the different Shoreline Management Plans, varied coastline conditions and locally distinct vulnerabilities are vacant plots of land. Dotted along the edge, these landscapes emerge in areas where the shoreline is rapidly retreating and act as a buffer against fast receding cliffs. Along the ‘Managed Realignment’ sections of the coast, they
form a continuous ribbon of land that has been left behind. While it is important to recognise that these places develop alongside irreversible loss and displacement, they harbour diversity of plants, animals and spatial experiences otherwise non-existent along protected stretches of the coast. As I explore new cliff falls, wildflower mixes and sand martin nests, and realise I haven’t walked very far in the past hour, it occurs to me there is something else, apart from defences, that slows down time – wonder.
16 on site review 49 :: shorelines
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