Recommendation 2

HM Government · verbatim extract Not Addressed

Government response Human Impacts We recognise that coastal erosion is not only a physical risk to land and property, but it also has profound human impacts, including loss of homes and livelihoods, community displacement and impacts on health and wellbeing. This is why in October 2025 we reformed our flood and coastal erosion risk management funding policy, making it quicker and easier to deliver the right flood defences in the right places by simplifying our funding rules. The new policy sets strategic objectives for a 10-year period, allowing us to develop and prioritise projects strategically, measured by a set of output and outcome metrics. The government’s Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) funding policy and the Environment Agency’s (EA’s) associated guidance for practitioners sets out the ways in which economic benefits are accounted for in funding decisions. The EA has provided tools to help calculate the economic benefits of FCERM projects at early stages of their development. The Handbook for Economic Appraisal for FCERM contains guidance and data for full business cases. Coastal erosion project benefits are benefits to people, property, businesses and infrastructure from increased resilience to erosion. The current methods for assessing funding eligibility include quantifying a large range of economic benefits from investment including the avoidance of direct damage to residential, commercial and public property, infrastructure damage, mental health costs, environmental and heritage damages, and lost tourism and recreation. Wider benefits, which are non-flood or erosion benefits, occur as a by-product of increasing resilience to flooding or erosion. Examples include increased tourism from beach nourishment and environmental improvements. These wider benefits are accounted for in the appraisal for FCERM projects. Engagement Engaging with communities is a key aspect of Shoreline Management Plans (SMP). Our SMPs are world-leading long-term adaptation plans, covering the next 100 years and beyond. They have been developed by Coastal Groups, with support from the EA and agreed locally through public consultation. Policy changes to SMPs must also be approved by the relevant RFCC who have representation from local authorities. A refresh of SMPs, including updated action plans, was completed in December 2024. This followed several years of collaborative work between the EA and Coastal Groups. SMPs are published on SMP Explorer along with the National Coastal Erosion Risk Map (NCERM) . These are important tools which Coastal Protection Authorities can use to identify and engage local communities and individuals on approaches to coastal management and the reasons for coastal change. The new Coastal Adaptation Pilots will help support Risk Management Authorities (RMAs) to engage with communities and actively empower local people to jointly develop options for coastal adaptation, which may include rollback and transition. Coordination In relation to collaboration, the EA, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) will continue to work closely on a range of issues relating to coastal change to support coastal communities. For instance, the relevant Ministers both attend the Flood Resilience Taskforce.