From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

BBC Happisburgh Complaint

Predictably, the BBC have rejected my complaint about the accuracy of the above claim, that “punishing weather conditions linked to climate change have eroded so much of the village’s soft rock”.

In the response from the BBC Executive Complaints Unit, ECU, they were unable to offer any evidence to back up the claim. Nor were they able to provide evidence that the rate of erosion has increased in recent years.

There is no mention in the article of the fact that the coastline at Happisburgh and elsewhere in Norfolk has been eroding at the same rate for thousands of years. This omission was clearly designed to persuade readers that climate change is the main factor behind the erosion.

But according to the ECU, readers would not have been misled, because the article states:

Happisburgh, home to about 1,100 people, is so susceptible to erosion because the cliffs are made from boulder clay which slumps when wet. The narrow beaches give less protection against the powerful waves, which increase in energy as they travel across the North Sea.

Authorities tried erecting wooden and concrete defences, but they fell into disrepair as the cost of maintaining them rose.

The ECU say that this explains “why coastal erosion has been an ongoing issue in Happisburgh for centuries”. It actually says nothing of the sort

The rest of the ECU reply was an irrelevant discussion of climate change, including this gem:

Whether rising sea levels have exacerbated erosion is not relevant to the complaint; the report does not say that, it only mentions climate change.

An honest report would have stated that this sort of erosion has been a problem for thousands of years, and that now rising sea levels may start making it worse.

Yet again, we see just how corrupt the BBC’s complaints process is.

We need a fully independent complaints unit now.