Farmers today revealed their fears that thousands of acres of land could be lost if Essex was again hit by floods on the scale of the great tide of 1953.
Wallasea Farms, which has more than 2,000 acres on the island, recently invested more than £1million in building a new seawall because there were fears if the old wall was breached, the Government would not give any support to farmers.
Robert Bache, from Grapnells Farm, said: "If there was a new breach, they would be happy to save the Baltic Wharf, Essex Marina and a caravan site on the island, but would not be concerned about the land. They would work out a cost benefit analysis and just allow the sea to inundate our land."
He added: "Maintenance of seawalls has fallen to almost nothing in recent years and we are extremely worried about what might happen all along the rivers and coastline if we had a repeat of the floods of 50 years ago."
Published Tuesday, January 28, 2003
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