A homeowner whose property was wrecked during storms has been told his insurance will not pay for his house to be rebuilt.

Alex Relf's home at Selsey, near Chichester, was ruined during last week's bad weather.

The ground floor was under inches of water after waves crashed through windows.

But his insurance company, Co-operative Insurance, will not pay out because the company says the damage to his home was caused by erosion rather than "storm damage".

Meanwhile the homes on either side of Mr Relf's house will be compensated because they were deemed to have been hit by storm damage.

A spokesman for the insurance company said the reason there was a discrepancy between Mr Relf's property and his neighbours' was that they had protective sea walls. His was damaged by storms in December.

He said: "Mr Relf needs to spend money reconstructing the sea wall. While we sympathise with him, it's an uncovered loss and it's something he needs to take up with the Environment Agency."

According to Mr Relf, when he first moved into the property 28 years ago, there was more than 30ft of land between his home and the sea.

He rebuilt the house, which he bought from Chichester District Council, after it burned down in a fire during the great storm of 1987.

Co-operative Insurance has said it will repair Mr Relf's front wall, as well as doing plastering and replacing carpets. But the builder said the foundations needed replacing too.

Mr Relf said: "How they can call it erosion is beyond me. The waves crashed right over my house and across the road out the back. I'm heartbroken, devastated and frustrated."

Loss adjusters visited Mr Relf at the end of last week and told him he was not covered.

A spokeswoman for the Environment Agency said the sea defences in place at Selsey were there to prevent flooding and that tackling erosion would cost £80 million.

She said: "We have been talking to the owners of the property for ten years about the increase in risk and inevitable damage to the property.

"There is huge demand for sea defences around our coastline and we have to prioritise.

"Unfortunately we cannot protect all the communities from the risk of erosion and flooding."

The Environment Agency, along with Chichester and Arun district councils, is developing a coastal defence strategy which is expected to manage coastal erosion and flood risk across the area during the next 100 years.

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