IN A battle against nature and bureaucracy, a retired structural engineer has been trying to build a sea defence to stop his home from disappearing over the side of a cliff.

The erosion of the cliffs on the beach at Easton Bevants in Suffolk has already claimed several houses and this week Peter Boggis stepped up his efforts, depositing 800 tonnes of building waste on the beach.

He started his mission in August 2002 and managed to dump 28,000 tonnes before the council got wind of what he was doing and stopped him.

But Mr Boggis, 73, was prepared for battle. He had consulted barristers and had got permission from the Environment Agency to fill lorries with mud and rubble and deposit it on the beach below his house.

The council said that his actions needed planning permission but he countered that by saying that it was agricultural work, which did not need permission.

He was then told that he was contravening EU rules and needed an environmental impact assessment, to which he replied that he was creating a national defence, which did not need one, and quoted the Coastal Protection Act.

Members of the Waveney District Council have now handed the problem to their barristers.

The cliffs have been disappearing at an alarming rate in the area, and 14 of 26 houses have had to be demolished in the past 40 years because they were no longer safe.

Mr Boggis, whose family moved to the house near Southwold in 1904, has calculated that it will be only another ten years before the sea creeps up another 100 yards to his house.

Several other home owners will lose their properties in the next few years if nothing is done, he claims.

Mr Boggis took The Times to the edge of the cliffs to see his handiwork.

“This work is a national defence. It doesn’t matter how small it is, it is undoubtedly defending the nation. If nothing is done the land will slowly erode away.

“The council has been trying to stop me for 11 months but they won’t. Half my time is spent battling the council and the other half battling against the sea.

“At the moment the sea is the hardier opponent because there should be some humanity somewhere within the council.”

Mr Boggis says that all his neighbours are on his side and most of the people in town support him. Even his local councillor, Peter Austin, who is also the leader of the district council, is “morally” on his side.

Although the council lawyers have not yet decided whether he can continue, the work has resumed after a break of a year.

Picking his words carefully he said: “I intend to protect my home. If I am told to stop I will take whatever action is necessary to overcome any false legal suggestion.”

Mr Boggis has spent £150,000 on the project, making a 150yd (137.16m) mound that is 30ft (9.1m) high.

He expects to spend another £350,000 lengthening the defence to half a mile. The money is being donated by members of the community.

Mr Boggis says that between his home and nearby Kessingland, about 400 acres of valuable marsh lands and ancient woods have been lost to the sea.

Mr Austin said: “We are sympathetic to what he is doing and do not have any objection in principle, but he has to make sure he is acting within the law.

“If he is, then there will not be any further objection as far as I am concerned. We are not in the business of trying to stop him protecting his home.”

Standing on the beach looking up at his work, Mr Boggis, who estimates that it will be another year before the project is finished, said: “I have seen erosion rates as great as 30yd in a year on this coast and at the present rate my house will be gone in ten years. I am going to do everything I can to stop that.”

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