In doomed Welsh village, ‘climate refugees’ decry lack of plans for enforced relocation
- Authorities say locals in Fairbourne, which faces long-term ‘catastrophic flood risk’, must abandon the village by the mid-2050s
- But the Gwynedd Council has been criticised for failing to detail its relocation plans for the Welsh village’s 900 residents
Occasionally at night, if the weather’s bad when she walks her dog along the waterfront, Georgina Salt admits feeling a little “frisson” at the vulnerability of her exposed Welsh village.
Otherwise, like many residents in Fairbourne, northwest Wales, she tries not to worry that rising sea levels are predicted to swamp the village.
A decade ago, Fairbourne – in a stunning but perilous position sandwiched between the Irish Sea, an estuary and the mountains of Snowdonia National Park – was given an official death sentence.
But Salt, a community councillor, thinks the decision by local authority Gwynedd Council and others to relocate Fairbourne by the mid-2050s was made prematurely, without adequate consideration or consultation – and could now itself be abandoned.
“The biggest problem was they put a date on things,” she said in the doomed village. “We’re trying to get them (the council) to … be a bit more flexible about it and say, ‘we’re going to keep an eye on things’.”
After a summer of drought and record temperatures, the UK is increasingly bracing itself for the many varied impacts of human-caused climate change while this week saw a US government report emerge showing the planet’s sea levels rising for a 10th straight year.