An 88-year-old woman fears her clifftop home in Suffolk may have to be demolished if the erosion creeps much closer.
Jean Flick has lived in the Thorpeness property for 25 years, moving there for a fresh start with her second husband after her first died from cancer.
She said the couple were “very happy” in the house before he too died from the disease.
A section of wall fell on to the beach earlier this year and she’s been told if the cliff gets within 5m of her home, it will need demolishing.
“No compensation, we have to pay for it to be pulled down and my heart will just break because it’s my home,” said Ms Flick.
“I know a lot of people have this problem [on] the coast and I sympathise with them because until it happens to you, you don’t realise the emotion that goes into the fact you’re going to lose your home.
“Without any compensation, where do you buy a house with nothing? Your home is gone and it’s just devastating really.”
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Another home in her street had to be pulled down three years ago.
Ms Flick is trying to get planning permission for self-funded rock-filled cages – called gabions – to be put at the base of the cliffs to slow the erosion.
She said getting the paperwork signed for the measure “seems to be taking ages” – but that “most days you see another little bit [of cliff] gone”.
“We’re working with the council and all the other people who are involved in it but it’s a job getting them all to meet together and agree together,” said Ms Flick.
“We would have liked to have carried on with rocks as our next door neighbour has but we’re not allowed that.”
The pensioner said Storm Babet in 2023 “ravaged” the cliffs.
“It really came with full force and I think that weakened the whole system along because it is sandy and there’s no way of making sand stay still,” she said.
The four-bed house is a few miles south of Sizewell, where a nuclear power station is being built.
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An East Suffolk Council spokesperson said: “Our key priority is to keep people safe while managing a rapidly eroding coastline at Thorpeness.
“We are supporting affected residents to explore potential temporary, short-term interventions that could be applied within an achievable timescale while plans are explored for any possible longer-term solutions.
“We have been working closely with the community for a number of years and due to recent accelerated rates of erosion the options available are now quite limited.”
The spokesperson said defences must meet their policy of managed realignment and would only be permitted to slow erosion.
