WATCH: Kitty Logan finds out how they are fighting erosion in Norfolk

The sandy beach at Hemsby in Norfolk is a popular summer holiday destination, but it's also on England's frontline with the North Sea. 

Now accelerated erosion is forcing this community to question its future. This shoreline has been vulnerable for centuries, but today it is losing that battle with the elements faster than ever before. 

Surge tides combined with a severe March storm have eaten away at the dunes, the strong waves carving a sharp drop in the sand, causing the closing off the beach for public safety and leaving the local lifeboat service unable to launch.

Several homes came perilously close to the clifftops as the sand crumbled in the storm. Residents were hastily evacuated, and five homes demolished. 

With many more properties at risk, a local campaign group is calling for a full-length sea berm to protect the village. 

"The people who have lost their homes have lost everything. So, they're in bits. The people who are living behind them, watching it happen to their neighbors and friends, they know that's their future unless something is done," says Ian Brennan, Chairman of Save Hemsby Coastline.

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Kevin Jordan bought his seafront property to enjoy a quiet retirement but now finds himself in one of a cluster of houses most at risk. 

"I moved here to enjoy this," he says. "I can sit out the front here of an evening in the summer with my gin and tonic and my pair of binoculars and I can watch the world sail by." 

But the sand dunes that were once in front of his home are almost gone, leaving him looking out onto a broken shoreline just metres from his front door. 

"When I moved in 12 years ago, I was told by experts that we had about a hundred years here. I don't think they took climate change into consideration then," he says. 

Jordan is only just managing to hang on, with support of local community members, as conditions deteriorate. He suffers from a disability and since the access road to his home has also collapsed in the recent storm, he can no longer drive to his door, nor can he rely on basic services. 

"We don't get any post now. We don't get any courier deliveries," he says. "My neighbor and I used to get groceries delivered every week. We can't get those now."

An estimated 80,000 UK homes could be lost to coastal erosion by the end of the century.

Lance Martin was also shaken from his dream of seafront life, his home creeping every closer to the edge of the dunes. But within an hour of a demolition order coming into force, he managed to drag his house to safety with heaving machinery, rolling it on poles, with the combined effort of local supporters. 

"What we've managed to do with the help of the good people of Hemsby and a lot of good tradespeople is we've managed to pull it forward three meters from the edge of the dune, therefore saving the collapse and saving my house," he says.

The house is badly damaged but was spared demolition. Martin's work is not quite over yet, though. He is busy dragging more wooden poles up to his house, to try again to shift it further away from the danger of the sea. 

But despite his ordeal, the former soldier is upbeat. "This can be done. You don't have to go for demolition. You can move your property," he says. "If you can get the right people behind you with the right attitude, positive mental attitude, you can move mountains."

The local authority is now hastily hauling huge, heavy rocks onto a section of beach, in response to the latest collapse, to shore up the damaged road. Campaigners welcome the effort but say more will be needed to save the village. 

"They're going to put a small amount on the beach but it's 5 percent of our target area, nowhere near enough," says Brennan. "It's going to protect a small area of road for a short time. But if it's not completed all along then it won't do what we need."

There is now planning permission in place to build a longer sea barrier. But with a $18.5m price tag, funding is expected to be another hurdle. And the reality is, while better protection for the shoreline may buy residents time, it is quite possible that not every home in Hemsby can be spared.

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