22 November 2020 | by Cllr James Meek
Seaford is a seaside town. We have an esplanade which was built to shield the town from the sea after serious flooding, and in 1987 the beach was covered with a million tonnes of pebble to protect the sea wall. It is crucial for this to be maintained to stop the sea damaging the sea wall and over-topping the esplanade.
Increasingly, winter storms are breaching this defence and this is likely to continue and become more serious as sea levels rise. If the average rise in temperatures is kept to 2˚C, scientists still predict that sea levels will rise by 2 metres. This is going to have significant effects for the town in years to come, and could be critical if temperatures rise more than that.
Anything we can do to reduce or prevent temperature rise is therefore vitally important for Seaford and the Ouse valley area. The Climate and Environmental Emergency Bill urges Central Government to adopt the measures signed up to in the Paris Accord, which so far have hardly been acted upon. Five years on the urgency is even more vital and the time frame has been moved closer.
There are some who maintain that Global Warming is not happening, and even if it is, there is nothing we can do about it. But there is a majority of scientists, environmentalists and business people worldwide who now recognise the desperate situation we face and acknowledge that we can and must try to do something about it, for the sake of our children, our environment and our future. Many local people have written to Maria Caulfield urging her to support this cross-party bill, and we can only hope that she will see fit to do the right thing to protect our town, our neighbourhood and our countryside.
The second reading of the bill goes before Parliament in March next year, leaving plenty of time for more people to voice their opinion and let Maria know how they feel. She is likely to send a stock response back, but the more people who write the more impact there is. You can write to her at Maria Caulfield MP, Member for Lewes, Houses of Parliament, London SW1A 0AA, or email maria.caulfield.mp@parliament.uk
Cllr James Meek, Chair of Seaford Town Council’s ‘Climate Change Working Party’.