The UK’s First Sandscaping Project (Bacton, Norfolk) from Idea to Reality

The Bacton Sandscaping scheme is a large-scale beach nourishment, designed to protect the Bacton Gas Terminal from cliff and beach erosion while also reducing flood and erosion risk to the communities of Bacton and Walcott, buying the time they need for adaptation to coastal change. The scheme was inspired by the Dutch Zandmotor project, but has translated the concept to the different geography and governance setting of the UK – it can be seen as the Zandmotor’s ‘little nephew’.

This paper describes the context of the challenge, how the sandscaping approach will work and tells the story of how the first project of this type outside the Netherlands has developed from the seed of an idea to reality. Technical expertise, passion, trust, flexibility and lateral thinking have all been to the fore in a truly unique collaboration between multiple private and public sector organisations.