Unique Sussex coastal habitats will be damaged by rising sea levels unless a new approach is taken to save them, the National Trust has warned.

The conservation body has published a report called Shifting Shores, which says damage to the coast caused by rising sea levels and storms now "appears inevitable".

It says there are dozens of organisations responsible for looking after the coastline in England and Wales which need to work together to help the environment.

The report singles out East Head, a sand and shingle dune near Chichester Harbour, as a natural attraction it owns and maintains that will probably deteriorate over the next few years.

It is connected to the shore by a narrow strip called the hinge and has slowly moved clockwise in the past few hundred years. In the 17th Century it was pointing south-west, now it points north.

In the past 100 years parts of the hinge have been washed away, and in the Sixties it was submerged for the first time during a heavy storm.

The National Trust predicts that over the next century three quarters of the land will become vulnerable to flooding and the spit will move another 220 yards. For the time being the trust plans to take 13,000 cubic metres of sand from the spit to build up the sand dunes that make up the hinge.

Jonathan Light, area manager for the trust in the South-East, said: "There are some areas like East Head and Cuckmere Haven where action is required now.

"There is a raft of agencies looking after the coastline, from the Environment Agency to local authorities. A lot of them work without linking to each other."

In France a single agency works to compensate people who lose their homes or businesses as a result of coastal erosion. Mr Light said he would like to see something similar in Britain to combat environmental damage.

He said part of the reason for East Head's decline was the sea defences erected further along the coast, which had stopped silt being deposited on the spit. If agencies responsible for coastlines worked together they would consider the damage defences put up in one area would have on another.

John Davis, Chichester harbourmaster, said the decline of East Head would devastate the city's economy.

It brings in 500,000 tourists every year and is important to the navigation of boats and yachts.

But he was against a national body being set up to deal with coastal erosion. He said: "We must try to act on local interests instead of having a national policy solution to all coastline problems."

The National Trust's head of policy and strategy, Tony Burton, said 60 per cent of its 702 miles of coastline could be affected by erosion in the next century.

He said: "The UK cannot ignore the issue and all sectors must plan how to adapt to a future of advancing seas."

Friday April 29 2005