INTRODUCTION

THE SHORELINE MANAGEMENT PLAN

A Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) provides a large-scale assessment of the risks associated with coastal evolution and presents a policy framework to address these risks to people and the developed, historic and natural environment in a sustainable manner. In doing so, an SMP is a high-level document that forms an important part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) strategy for flood and coastal defence (Defra, 2001).

This document provides the first revision to the original South Foreland to Beachy Head SMP (1996).

This CD contains the consultation draft of the South Foreland to Beach Heady Shoreline Management Plan. The format of this Shoreline Management Plan is given below, and all of the documents referred to below can be viewed by selecting the relevant item from the menu to the left.

These documents are in PDF format, and as such you will need Adobe Acrobat to view them.

This can be downloaded by clicking here

STRUCTURE OF THE SMP

The recommended plan and policies presented in this SMP are the result of numerous studies, assessments and discussions performed over a period of time. To provide clarity for different readerships, the documentation to communicate and support the plan is provided in a number of parts. At the broadest level, these are divided into two; the Shoreline Management Plan itself, and a series of supporting appendices.

These are also supported by a Summary Leaflet used to disseminate the draft SMP during consultation.

The Shoreline Management Plan

This document provides the management plan for the next 100 years and the policies required for it to be implemented. This is intended for general readership and is the main tool for communicating intentions. Whilst the justification for decisions is presented, it does not provide all of the information behind the recommendations, this being contained in the supporting documents.

The plan is presented in five parts:

Section 1 gives details on the principles, aims, structure and background to its development.

Section 2 provides details of how the SMP meets the requirements of a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).

Section 3 presents the basis for development of the Plan, describing the concepts of sustainable policy and providing an understanding of the constraints and limitations on adopting certain policies.

Section 4 presents the preferred Plan at high level for the SMP as a whole, discussing the rationale, implications, and requirements to manage change. The coastline is considered in four broad sections.

Section 5 provides a series of statements for each of the 30 coastal policy units that detail the location-specific policies proposed to implement the preferred Plan and the local implications of these policies.

Although it is expected that many readers will focus upon the local details in Section 4, it is important to recognise that the SMP is produced for the coast as a whole, considering issues beyond specific locations. Therefore, these statements must be read in the context of the wider-scale issues and policy implications, as reported in Sections 3, 4 and the Appendices to the Plan.

Following consultation, an action plan will be added to this plan document, providing a programme for future activities which are required to progress the plan between now and its next review in 5 to 10 years time

SMP supporting appendices

The accompanying documents provide all of the information required to support the plan. This is to ensure that there is clarity in the decision-making process and that the rationale behind the policies being promoted is both transparent and auditable. These are supported by a Glossary of Terms.

This information is largely of a technical nature and is provided in nine Appendices:

A. SMP Development: This reports the history of development of the SMP, describing more fully the plan and policy decision-making process. The remaining documents effectively provide appendices to this report.

B. Stakeholder Involvement: All communications from the stakeholder process will be provided here, together with information arising from the consultation process.

C. Baseline Process Understanding: Includes baseline process report, defence assessment, No Active Intervention (NAI) and With Present Management (WPM) assessments and summarises data used in assessments.

D. Thematic Review: This report identifies and evaluates the environmental features (human, natural, historical and landscape) in terms of their significance and how these need to be accommodated by the SMP.

E. Issues & Objective Evaluation: Provides information on the issues and objectives identified as part of the Plan development, including appraisal of their importance.

F. Initial Policy Appraisal and Scenario Development: Presents the consideration of generic policy options for each frontage, identifying possibly acceptable policies, and their combination into ‘scenarios’ for testing, together with the process assessment and objective appraisal for each scenario.

G. Scenario Testing: Presents the policy assessment and appraisal of objective achievement towards definition of the Preferred Plan (as presented in the Shoreline Management Plan document).

H. Economic Appraisal and Sensitivity Testing: Presents the economic analysis undertaken in support of the Preferred Plan.

I. Metadatabase and Bibliographic database: All supporting information used to develop the SMP is referenced for future examination and retrieval.