'My village is sliding into the sea and my house could be gone by Christmas'
A heartbroken mum fears her cliff-top home may fall into the sea by Christmas - after 26ft (8m) of land was swept away in just a MONTH.
Nicola Bayless’s three-bed semi in Happisburgh is now less than 50ft (15m) from the cliff after storms Babet and Ciaran ravaged the Norfolk coast in the autumn.
And she worries her family’s £375,000 property may be gone by the end of December as the village teeters on the edge.
Nicola, 48, said: “We haven’t even got into winter, but as we’ve lost that much, we could be forced to leave in springtime or even before Christmas. It’s frightening.”
Her late parents, Anita and Arthur Richmond, originally bought Beacon House in 2001 when it was over 670ft (200m) away from the cliff's edge.
They knew the property, which sat among homes on Beach Road, wouldn’t be around forever as the government decided not to upgrade local sea defences.
But since then, the sea has carved out huge swaths of the “cream cheese” like coastline, forcing dozens of locals to abandon their luxury properties.
And Nicola, who moved into the property seven years ago, now fears her 'worthless' home could become uninhabitable in just a few months.
The nurse said: “It’s heartbreaking and it’s frightening if you let it take over your mind, it can get you down mentally.
“I’m not choosing to go and find somewhere new. it’s something I’m being forced to do. I would stay here forever, but I’m not going to put myself at risk.
"After Babet, four metres was gone. Then it was another two meres after Ciarán. But more has gone since then. So you’re talking, in a month, seven to eight metres.
“We used to have Christmas light competitions with our neighbours - how many lights you could get on your home. It looked like Las Vegas at the bottom of the road.
“It makes you sad that village life is disappearing as well.”
Nicola said she had holidayed in the idyllic Happisburgh area, famed for its red and white striped lighthouses, with her parents during the 1980s and 1990s.
And during one of these memorable trips, they "fell in love" with Beacon House, which they went on to buy for £76,000 over 20 years ago.
Mum of two Nicola said her parents gave her the home in 2016 when she started a family, while they moved into her nearby terraced home and later to a bungalow.
And they had believed the property, which has a huge 50m (164ft) back garden and an annexe, would later be passed onto their grandchildred.
But Nicola said the couple would be shocked if they could see the devastating loss of land that has taken place in the five years since their deaths.
She said: “My parents had said ‘It will see you out, it will see your kids out.’
“On the survey, they were told they had 150 years before the cliff would meet the house. That was quite believable because of where it was.
“But they’ve only been gone five years and in that time, you wouldn’t believe how much has gone.
Nicola Bayless’s three-bed semi in Happisburgh is now less than 50ft (15m) from the cliff after storms Babet and Ciaran ravaged the Norfolk coast in the autumn.
And she worries her family’s £375,000 property may be gone by the end of December as the village teeters on the edge.
Nicola, 48, said: “We haven’t even got into winter, but as we’ve lost that much, we could be forced to leave in springtime or even before Christmas. It’s frightening.”
Her late parents, Anita and Arthur Richmond, originally bought Beacon House in 2001 when it was over 670ft (200m) away from the cliff's edge.
They knew the property, which sat among homes on Beach Road, wouldn’t be around forever as the government decided not to upgrade local sea defences.
But since then, the sea has carved out huge swaths of the “cream cheese” like coastline, forcing dozens of locals to abandon their luxury properties.
And Nicola, who moved into the property seven years ago, now fears her 'worthless' home could become uninhabitable in just a few months.
The nurse said: “It’s heartbreaking and it’s frightening if you let it take over your mind, it can get you down mentally.
“I’m not choosing to go and find somewhere new. it’s something I’m being forced to do. I would stay here forever, but I’m not going to put myself at risk.
"After Babet, four metres was gone. Then it was another two meres after Ciarán. But more has gone since then. So you’re talking, in a month, seven to eight metres.
“We used to have Christmas light competitions with our neighbours - how many lights you could get on your home. It looked like Las Vegas at the bottom of the road.
“It makes you sad that village life is disappearing as well.”
Nicola said she had holidayed in the idyllic Happisburgh area, famed for its red and white striped lighthouses, with her parents during the 1980s and 1990s.
And during one of these memorable trips, they "fell in love" with Beacon House, which they went on to buy for £76,000 over 20 years ago.
Mum of two Nicola said her parents gave her the home in 2016 when she started a family, while they moved into her nearby terraced home and later to a bungalow.
And they had believed the property, which has a huge 50m (164ft) back garden and an annexe, would later be passed onto their grandchildred.
But Nicola said the couple would be shocked if they could see the devastating loss of land that has taken place in the five years since their deaths.
She said: “My parents had said ‘It will see you out, it will see your kids out.’
“On the survey, they were told they had 150 years before the cliff would meet the house. That was quite believable because of where it was.
“But they’ve only been gone five years and in that time, you wouldn’t believe how much has gone.
Transcript
00:00 I'm Nicola Bayliss and I've lived in Hayesborough since 2004. Since then we've lost a lot of cliff
00:10 and most of the road as you can see that's ending here has disappeared and all the houses and I'm
00:20 next and it doesn't look like I've got that much longer. In the last month there's been about six
00:26 meters gone so it's pretty crazy how quickly things are happening. In 2012 the Beasts from the East
00:33 we had a massive lot go when we had the high storms then and now it sort of seems to be every
00:42 time we get a high tide it's batten down the hatches and check what's happening. We've had
00:48 heavy rains you know and sort of where the wind just whips up the waves and just hits the cliffs
00:56 so it is happening more. The electrical companies come out today to check the power cables because
01:07 the power line here is going to be going in very soon it's not far from the edge of the cliff
01:14 so lots of other utilities like water board as well they've had to reroute water to the lighthouse
01:22 to the cottages there too so that's had to be moved because all the water pipes were visible
01:27 a little while ago. Hayesborough has always been battling against sort of being able to get new
01:35 revetments and new sea defenses in here but that's been told that we can't have it
01:43 renewed they're leaving it alone. We have had rocks put in that the community and local council
01:51 raised money for they're not exactly very efficient they do a little bit of slowing up but
01:58 the wooden revetments that we had would have been much better they would have slowed a lot of this
02:05 down so because it did maintain the line for a long time and it's just ever since this has all
02:12 been destroyed you can see all the bits that were left over there they're basically just sticks
02:19 sticking up now but they were protecting the cliff and that's where the cliff was just
02:25 just before those wooden bits so that's how much has gone in the past 20 years.
02:40 [no audio]