Beautiful UK seaside town at risk as cliffs keep crumbling into the sea

Sidmouth is fashionable with tourists twelvemonth round, contempt its crumbling cliff faces (Image: Getty)

Sidmouth successful Devon is simply a existent tourer gully successful the summer months, with coachloads of visitors heading implicit from adjacent Exmouth to illustration its scope of cultural and culinary attractions.

It's not each sunshine and rainbows successful this quintessential staycation spot, however, with 4 large landslides this twelvemonth unsocial starring East Devon District Council to pass of the "very existent danger" of enjoying its stretching pebblestone beaches, which beryllium beneath a coastline that that is gradually falling into the sea.

The astir caller illness happened connected November 8, conscionable days aft the "biggest autumn successful years" erstwhile a mound of world dropped onto engaged Jacob's Ladder beach, leaving a thatched cottage teetering conscionable metres distant from a 400-foot drop. Drone footage of the collapsed cliff look shows the grade of the hazard it posed to holidaymakers and locals alike.

The National Trust has besides urged walkers to debar a footpath connected Salcombe Hill, conscionable implicit a mile distant from the municipality centre, aft a cliff autumn that the section coastguard rescue squad described arsenic "very serious", DevonLive reports.

"Cliff falls are a earthy and unpredictable occurence on the East Devon coast," a assembly spokesperson said aft the astir caller incident. "This is due to the fact that the stone from which the cliffs are formed is brushed and truthful prone to rockfalls and landslides, which tin hap astatine immoderate time."

Drone shots amusement the location teetering dangerously adjacent to the cliff borderline (Image: PA)

"If successful doubt, don't locomotion nether oregon adjacent the cliffs," the section authorization warned. "The coastguard advises that formation users enactment astatine slightest the tallness of the cliff away, e.g., if a cliff is 20 metres high, a region of 20 metres should beryllium kept."

Beachgoers were besides near scrambling to flight aft different illness caused a unreality of particulate to erupt connected Jacob's Ladder backmost successful August - with radical forced to tally into the oversea to flight the tumbling reddish sandstone rock. The assembly reacted by informing that the cliffside posed a "very existent danger" and urging visitors to "exercise caution".

Locals likewise described rocks the size of cars falling onto the formation successful March and different rockfalls were recorded successful September and October 2023. "The rocks and debris wholly covered the width of the formation successful seconds, which truly highlights however unsafe it is to locomotion adjacent to unstable cliffs similar these," says section clime idiosyncratic Vicky.

"Even aft the main cliff autumn had stopped, debris kept connected falling," she told Devon Live of the March landslip. "About 10 minutes aft the particulate had settled, a immense stone the size of a car came crashing down the cliff and rolled onto the beach.

"Luckily determination was nary 1 connected this portion of the formation astatine the clip but if determination had been, it could person been tragic."

The unique-looking cliff faces are prone to predominant rockfalls (Image: Getty)

The preacious presumption of the coastal town, which has a colonisation of astir 13,000 and is known arsenic the second location superior of East Devon, doesn't look to number against it connected the tourism front. Or possibly it's acknowledgment to a beardown insular assemblage that concern doesn't emblem successful the colder months.

Sidmouth does person a ample aged colonisation who are constricted successful their buying options. Over a 4th of residents were recorded arsenic being implicit 65 successful the 2023 census and section assembly person James McInnes acknowledged "challenges for our wellness and big attraction services" owed to radical "ageing astatine a faster rate" successful the municipality than connected a nationalist scale.

Nestled betwixt the agleam reddish sandstone cliffs, Sidmouth is an awesome small spot - a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site with regency-era architecture and a traditional, sweet-looking promenade. Its scope of tiny businesses besides helps to support commercialized going successful the look of what you tin lone presume would beryllium atrocious press.

"We look to tick implicit each wintertime conscionable fine," Dan Lakeman, co-owner of The Bagel Shop cafe, which has precocious expanded to a 2nd location, told Devon Live.

"People emotion our ethos of supporting West Country producers. You're not conscionable supporting a bagel store but a full ecosytem of radical who emotion what they make."