More Environment Agency money cuts the council's sea defence bill by £6.5m

The council’s share of the cost of new sea defences between Brighton Marina and the mouth of the River Adur is set to drop from £11 million to £4.5 million. The Environment Agency has raised its grant for the scheme from £14 million to £25.9 million, and the Labour-run council’s cabinet will be asked on Thursday 12 November to approve the new funding and start the last phase of building.

The scheme covers about 10km of coast. In Hove, the old timber groynes on the beach between the King Alfred Leisure Centre and Second Avenue are being replaced with new ones that reach further out to sea. Thousands of tonnes of shingle then go in between them to widen the beach, which the council says will absorb wave energy and cut down on stones washed up on to Kings Esplanade. Rock armour has already been laid next to Basin Road South, and a new sea wall built near the Hove Deep Sea Anglers Club.

Brighton & Hove leads the scheme, working with Adur & Worthing Councils, Shoreham Port Authority and the Environment Agency. Phase 3, the one now up for approval, is mostly inside Shoreham Port: repairs to the sea walls, new rock revetments and public paths put back. The contract is worth about £13.5 million and would go out to open tender. The port pays for work on its own assets.

The whole scheme is now forecast to cost £36.5 million. In April 2025 the cabinet raised the council’s funding for this stage from £6.5 million to £11 million, citing rising costs and the need for extra shingle. With the bigger grant, the council’s borrowing falls by £6.5 million, which the report calls “a significant improvement in the affordability of the Scheme”. The report is from Cllr Trevor Muten, the cabinet member for Transport and City Infrastructure.

The catch is time. The Hove work was due to run from late September 2025 to May 2026, and the council’s coastal page now says it should finish around November 2026.

Waste wood from the new groynes is going to the charity Men in Sheds, which makes it into new items to fund its workshops. People working on the scheme have also put in more than 300 volunteer hours, and £1,000 is due to go to homeless charities in the city.