Barton-on-Sea cliff closed
Marine Drive East and the parallel cliff top at Barton-on-Sea have been closed following the sudden appearance of a thousand foot long crack.
A suggestion that the crack appeared at about the same time as Kent was experiencing an earthquake on Saturday is being taken seriously by the Marine and Coastguard Agency. A spokesperson said: “It was too coincidental too ignore.”
A row of beach huts below the cliff has been evacuated but residents in Marine Drive East are remaining at home.
There has been dramatic cliff erosion over many years at Barton. Cliff Edge Café to the west was closed in 1990 and demolished.
The new danger area is between the Beachcomber Café and the start of the slope down to Becton Bunny.
There is now concern that heavy rain may cause a landslip. Rainwater, soaking quickly through the top layer of sand, can become caught in clay below creating a soggy substance which is liable to slip.
The temporary west-east diversion for the coast path is expected to be along the north side of Marine Drive East or on Grove Road behind with a return to the cliff at Becton Lane.
April 29th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Check out my beach hut website for pics of the cracks and the huts below.
See the “latest news” section and the first mention on Sunday the 8th April, then the update on Saturday the 28th April.
It is not a new thing, http://www.thisishampshire.net news site has a contributor saying the crack is years old.
So it is nothing to do with the Kent eartquake, unless the assumed seperate channel fault-line shown on http://www.thisislondon.co.uk (which is known to lead into Christchurch harbour) is somehow connected tellurically.
Personally (after reading Umberto Eco’s novel “Foucoult’s Pendulum”, I blame the ghost of Stephen de Staplebrigge angry at my current website feature article called “Here lies England’s Last Templar”
April 29th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
If the links I gave are hard to find , try:
http://web.mac.com/beachhutman/iWeb/Site/Blog/B003F837-173F-43C3-BA5E-9B02E96C309B.html
for my version,
Then
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23394279-details/Kent+earthquake+damages+hundreds+of+homes/article.do
for the fault line map
then
http://www.thisishampshire.net/mostpopular.var.1362757.mostviewed.crack_along_cliff_road_prompts_landslide_fears.php
for the comment by Martin Roche saying it was years old
Keep your fingers crossed for my beach hut please!
April 30th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Hi there.
… and no doubt you’ve seen these websites too that refer to the cliff cracks…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/6603547.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6604799.stm
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2068090,00.html
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070428/tsc-britain-quake-c6db719.html
Even Wikipedia has an entry on it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Kent_earthquake
Kind regards
Alex