ANOTHER leading coastal campaigner has welcomed a ground breaking legal ruling which could help save communities from disappearing beneath the North Sea.

ANOTHER leading coastal campaigner has welcomed a ground breaking legal ruling which could help save communities from disappearing beneath the North Sea.

Jim Bratton, from the Scratby Coastal Erosion Group, says that the recent reversal of conservation body Natural England's opposition to maintaining sea defence is a boost in the arm to efforts to save large parts of the Norfolk coast.

Natural England was told last week that its plan to force erosion on seaside householders was an "unnecessary and disproportionate interference" with human rights and that people should be able to maintain their own sea defences.

Mr Bratton says the ruling will now give fresh impetus to his group's campaign to defend Scratby's coastline, which lost metres of dune and beach in last November's tidal surge.

He said: "We hope that the decision will mean that Scratby is not washed away."

The Natural England ruling was made after Charles England, of Easton Bavents, near Southwold, appealed against their policy and the reversal has already been welcomed by Malcolm Kerby of the Happisburgh-based Coastal Concern Action Group.