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Marine and Coastal Access Bill [HL]

My Amendment A326A is linked with this group and is another probing amendment. In our brief discussions on an earlier amendment, I gave the example of the Nare Hotel in Cornwall and erosion that had affected the pathway. By local agreement, it has now been put behind the hotel. I refer again to that sort of subject. I suggest that we remove new Section 55B(4) in Clause 292 in order to have a discussion about the whole question of rollback. I know the east coast quite well. Just up from Southwold is Covehythe. Below it is Dunwich, which is now in the sea; there is very little left. Covehythe has lost nearly three miles of coastland. The question is therefore what happens to a pathway when it is realigned? Is there a risk that it could be put through a farmyard, farm business park or private estate? What comeback would the owner of that property, who may well not have been the owner of the original pathway that is now no more and is in the sea, have when the pathway is redesignated? The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, is no longer in his place, but quite a few areas along the north Norfolk coast—Suffolk and Essex have been mentioned before—face a considerable threat of new erosion. If there is to be a recognised path for people to walk on, what will happen when so much of it is no longer in being and the new path is likely to go across another owner’s land in place of the traditional path that had been agreed in the past? That is the reasoning behind my amendment, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.