Essex is one of the areas in England that is most at risk of having coastal homes lost to the sea by 2100, according to a climate action group.

One Home identified 21 at-risk villages and hamlets and estimated how much coast could be lost there assuming that current policies on whether to defend, retreat or abandon sections of the coastline are followed.

They used data from the Environment Agency’s National Coastal Erosion Risk Mapping (NCERM) dataset at 5% confidence, indicating a less than 5% chance of the coast being eroded further inland than the estimate.

The value of property damages, on the land that could be hit by coastal erosion by 2100, was estimated at £584 million using average local authority values or site-specific values from Rightmove, One Home said.

Saffron Walden Reporter: Many houses could be lost to the sea due to coastal erosion by 2100Many houses could be lost to the sea due to coastal erosion by 2100 (Image: PA)

One Home also created an interactive map highlighting the risk of coastal erosion around England, which can be found on their website here.

Essex is one of the areas that could lose the most homes this century, along with Cornwall, Cumbria, Dorset, East Yorkshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Northumberland, Norfolk and Sussex.

Angela Terry, chief executive of One Home, said: “Sea levels are rising as global temperatures soar and so larger waves batter our coast during severe storms.

“These irreversible changes mean some cliff faces are crumbling fast.

“We can’t turn the tide or build a wall around the entire coast so we urgently need to help seaside communities to prepare for the damage that will come."

Terry went on to explain that their research is to help explain shoreline management plans (SMPs) so that homeowners are "sufficiently informed to make timely decisions about their properties to reduce future harm".

More than a third of England’s coastline has a designation of “no active intervention”, One Home said, meaning that nothing will be done.

The other two levels of protection in SMPs are “hold the line”, meaning that defences will be maintained and upgraded if funding is found, and “managed realignment” which involves moving or allowing the shoreline to retreat in a managed way.