UK Shore News

Construction has begun on the 26 turbine wind farm at Walland Marsh on the Kent/East Sussex coastal borders. The wind farm is being built by Npower Renewables.

Permission for the £60m wind farm was given by the government in 2005 following a public inquiry. The proposal had met widespread opposition from residents and councils in Kent and East Sussex, and will create a very imposing presence on the flat marshland of the area.

After an initial holdup, the first turbine was complete and a second one underway as at 21st June. UPDATE: 6th July - 5 turbines now complete (see image).

The BBC News website quotes spokesman Simon Holt as saying:
“We should expect to see two turbines go up every week and we should be finished by the end of September. When the turbine components arrive on site it is a relatively straightforward operation to put them all together.”

UPDATE: 23th August - 12 turbines in place.

UPDATE: 21st September - 24 turbines in place, see new image below.

UPDATE: 29th September - All 26 turbines in place.

An underwater survey of the lost port of Dunwich off the Suffolk coast has revealed the remains of a medieval church. Marine archaeologist Stuart Bacon, director of the Suffolk Underwater Studies believes that it is the remains of St John’s Church, which was the main church in the town during the Middle Ages and it contained a chapel dedicated to St Nicholas.

Mr. Bacon is quoted by Norfolk Eastern Daily Press as saying: “We have found a new church. I knew there were three here but now we have another one. It is one I have been trying to find for years. This is new information and it means that the results of the survey are going to be quite spectacular”.

“At the moment we are deploying to try and find evidence of Roman occupation off the entrance to the river Blyth and from where I am sitting you can not image the coastline how it was 2,000 years ago. This is a very exciting time”.

Dunwich was once a thriving port, rivalling London in the 12th and 13th century, but the city was eventually swallowed by the waves, the port silting up after a great storm in 1328 and by the 16th century half of the city had been claimed by the sea.

The results of the marine survey will be put on display at Dunwich Museum (St. James’s Street, Dunwich, Saxmundham, Suffolk).

Kent Wildlife Trust’s first official Kent Seasearch dive survey of the year has discovered a seahorse close to Dover Harbour.

Two volunteer divers found the animal in Shakespeare Bay, southwest of the harbour, in a depth of about 15 metres. Video taken by the divers of the three-inch long animal confirmed it to be a short-snouted seahorse (Hippocampus hippocampus), the same as that reported in the Thames Estuary last month.

Seasearch diver and Marine Officer for Kent Wildlife Trust, Bryony Chapman, said: “We have had very occasional reports of seahorses washed up around the Kent coast, but we believe this is the first sighting and the first film of these elusive creatures in their natural environment in this area, so the team is very excited.”

The find follows a recent announcement that short-snouted and spiny seahorses are being given special protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. There is so little information about these animals that it is not clear how endangered they may be.

Kent Seasearch is run by Kent Wildlife Trust and is part of a national Seasearch programme for volunteer divers to help protect marine wildlife by recording information about habitats and species on their dives. This information will help those responsible for marine nature conservation to develop strategies which protect the UK’s marine wildlife.