New York Times — If Your House Were Falling Off a Cliff, Would You Leave?

Thousands of homes along the eastern coast of England are threatened by the rapidly eroding cliffs abutting the North Sea. A house in the village of Thorpeness, above, sits about 40 feet from the edge.Andy Haslam for The New York Times

May 15, 2023

Homeowners along the eastern coast of England are watching the North Sea swallow their communities. Help is on the way — but only for some.

ENGLAND — On a stormy day in the spring of 2021, the sea defenses on the beach below Lucy Ansbro’s cliff-top home in Thorpeness, England, washed away. Then, the end of her garden collapsed into the North Sea.

As she watched the plants tumble over the edge, she feared that her house in this coastal village 110 miles northeast of London would be next.

“We lost three and a half meters of land,” said Ms. Ansbro, a 54-year-old television producer, sitting in her kitchen on a recent morning. “Every time I went out, I didn’t know if the house would still be here when I came back.”

…