Historic venue loses half of fifth tee to coastal erosion

The oldest nine-hole links course in England says it has lost half of its fifth tee to coastal erosion as it prepares to bolster sea defences.

Alnmouth Village Golf Club was established in 1869 but coastal erosion is now threatening its existence.

The club’s Steve Lockley said: “It’s taken away, basically half of our fifth tee green. So we’re literally a metre away from losing that entire green if we got another wind and flood of that level again, intensity

“So it’s pretty existential for a golf course. Because we’re a nine hole golf course, we don’t want to be an eight hole golf course.”

Plans are afoot to save the course.

The community will come together later this year to repair the groynes [long narrow structures built out into the sea from the beach to limit the movement and loss of beach material] that act as existing sea defences.

Image from Facebook

It is hoped this will allow sand to build back up and form a defensive barrier against the sea.

Ian Garrett, from the golf club, said: “It will buy time in terms of the impact of the coastal erosion.

“It will allow time to develop a plan that protects the next generation of this village 25, 30, 40, 50 years ahead.

“If we don’t do something, then sooner or later this green may be gone. And it will lead to greater issues in terms of the rest of the village.”

Dr Seb Pitman, from Newcastle University, added: “Storms like Babet back in October were really unusual because it sat over the coastline and we had pretty much 48 hours of waves in excess of four metres high there.

“So we’re seeing strange behaviour in weather, weather patterns and storm systems. And when you combine that with sea level rise, which is moving all of these processes further inland, we’re starting to see these impacts more acutely.”