'Take immediate action' - Shoreham Sailing Club makes urgent flood defences appeal to Environment Agency
Amid a ‘serious risk of flooding’, Shoreham Sailing Club has issued an urgent plea to those with the power to do something about it.
The incorporated charitable organisation – which is located on the far end of Shoreham Beach directly opposite the RNLI Lifeboat station – is home to Adur Sailing Club. This provides sailing courses for young people from the local area and Lancing Sea Scouts.
The club has this month issued a fresh appeal for the UK Government’s Environment Agency (EA) to ‘urgently resolve unfinished flood defences at Soldiers’ Point’.
A spokesperson for Shoreham Sailing Club said: “[It is] a site now at serious risk of flooding despite originally being included in the £45 million Shoreham Adur Tidal Walls Scheme.
"The EA launched the project in 2019 to protect homes, businesses, and infrastructure along the River Adur from tidal flooding. However, five years on, Shoreham Sailing Club and local residents remain unprotected due to unfinished works.
"Independent consultants JBA Consulting warned the EA in 2019 that failing to install the proposed piling works would leave Shoreham Sailing Club ‘at risk of flooding where no flooding was predicted in previous modelled scenarios’.
"The report, based on outdated 2009 data, also cautioned that forthcoming sea-level-rise projections would likely increase that risk. It further highlighted that the raised kerb at the adjacent car park – protecting local residents and the highway – offered only ‘minimal freeboard’, meaning even a small breach could cause flooding.”
The EA has since issued a statement to Sussex World, with responses to individual issues raised by the sailing club.
On sheet piling and claims about unfinished works, a spokesperson for the government agency said: “There is a major rising main sewerage pipe crossing the river northeasterly from Soldiers Point.
“Due to this critical infrastructure the scheme was not able to undertake piling works to construct a wall in this location. The design was amended, including the permanent installation of a kerb line, to ensure a high standard of protection.
“Hydraulic modelling has showed it protects residential properties and the highway.”
Through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, the club said it discovered that the EA had no wave, current or sediment modelling for the large concrete slipway it constructed at Shoreham Sailing Club – the design of which it said has ‘significantly altered local water movement and impacted on the unprotected area at Soldiers’ Point’.
“The slipway has completely changed the flow,” said William Warren, commodore at Shoreham Sailing Club.
“There are new eddies and waves where the water used to be calm. The shoreline is unrecognisable - groynes have been entirely buried or left as exposed skeletons.”
The sailing club said the change in currents has uncovered an ancient anchor – ‘believed to have last seen the light of day in the Napoleonic era’. Safety concerns have led Shoreham Port to ‘restrict recreational water sports around the point’.
The spokesperson added: “The EA has made several temporary interventions since 2020 – including reinstating shingle and building and subsequently reinstating rock revetments – but each has failed to hold. Most recently, work undertaken in March 2025 has already shown signs of failure.
"Despite repeated promises, including a 2021 assurance to Adur and Worthing Councils that ‘permanent solutions’ were being developed, no permanent fix has been delivered."
Representatives from Shoreham Sailing Club recently met with East Worthing and Shoreham MP Tom Rutland, the Environment Agency, Shoreham Port and Adur District Council to ‘discuss the worsening situation’.
The club said, in eight weeks since the meeting, the only correspondence they received from the EA was that staff ‘will be in touch’.
“This is no longer just frustrating for us – it’s about security, safety and trust,” a club statement read.
"The Environment Agency has left a gap in the flood defences they promised to complete. Every day that passes puts our land, our members, and nearby homes at greater risk.
"We are calling on the EA to take immediate, permanent action to protect Shoreham Sailing Club before it’s too late.”
The Environment Agency’s subsequent statement referenced ‘untrue’ claims that erosion has been caused by the Shoreham Adur Tidal Wall scheme or slipway.
The EA spokesperson said: “Movement of beach material has always occurred on this section of the tidal River Adur. The addition of the concrete slipway is not the cause of this natural process.
“The flood defences were designed using a fluvial model inclusive of tidal conditions.”
On the danger to housing at the east end of Shoreham Beach, the agency added: “The risk of flooding to properties to the east end of Shoreham Beach are managed by the Shoreham Adur Tidal Walls scheme to a high standard and this has not changed.
“Due to the ongoing erosion, we have recently undertaken improvement works to the rock revetment which protects the flood defence wall. This will ensure the properties’ flood risk is managed appropriately.”
The EA said its design ‘took into account sea-level rise predictions’, up to the end of the scheme’s desired life – ‘50 years on from its construction’.