HOUSEHOLDERS will be asked if they can help to pay for a coastal defence scheme to stop their properties falling into the sea.Suffolk Coastal District Council also wants English Heritage to contribute towards the cost of protecting a martello tower and two houses at East Lane, Bawdsey, near Woodbridge.

HOUSEHOLDERS will be asked if they can help to pay for a coastal defence scheme to stop their properties falling into the sea.

Suffolk Coastal District Council also wants English Heritage to contribute towards the cost of protecting a martello tower and two houses at East Lane, Bawdsey, near Woodbridge.

The council's cabinet has decided the council should do everything it can afford to help to protect the coast after government rule changes scuppered plans to make urgent improvements to the coastal defences.

A new priority system introduced by the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has downgraded the proposed scheme by the Environment Agency and Suffolk Coastal for Bawdsey to only medium to low priority - it could be many years before it is carried out.

Andy Smith, deputy leader of the council, said: "This decision has left East Lane in real danger of erosion with expert advice suggesting that within four years the two properties and the martello tower may be lost.

"We will do all that we can within our own severe financial constraints to prevent this happening."

He added that the work will cost between £20,000 and £40,000 a year to maintain it and that as a result of insufficient Government funding the council may have to committ to a stop-gap solution instead of a long term one which East Lane needs.