THERE’S a village called Trimingham on the Norfolk coast where generations of my family lived.

But the only Triminghams there now are those who lie beneath gravestones in the churchyard and when I last went there the beautiful beach was deserted.

Why should that be? Trimingham has low soft cliffs which erode when there are severe storms or hide tides.

Sooner rather than later it will join much of the east coast in sinking below the sea.

Here in Sussex, most of the coast was protected years ago as it became urbanised.

But there are a few famous places where the waters are eating remorselessly away at the land.

Birling Gap, a beauty spot owned by the National Trust, loses chunks of chalk cliffs plus the occasional cottage to erosion.

A few hundred yards to the east is Belle Tout, a former lighthouse which had to be towed to a safe spot nearby to avoid falling into the Channel.

Belle Tout should have been OK for many years but it now seems it may have to be moved a second time much sooner than expected.

To the west is the estuary of the River Cuckmere, justly celebrated by geography students for its meanders and ox bow lakes.

Yet when I went there earlier this month, they had all gone and the estuary had become a vast bowl of water.

In areas like these where there is little housing, it is possible to pursue a policy of managed retreat against the raging sea.

But at towns like Selsey, there are hundreds of homes to protect and precious few ways of achieving it.

Selsey may last a few years longer but inevitably the sea will win and it will join many other places which have succumbed.

Rottingdean regularly lost homes until Brighton Council in the 1930s built sea defences using unemployed miners from Wales to do the job.

The Undercliff Walk was built as a bonus and several other short stretches have since been added at Peacehaven.

It might seem to the casual observer that Brighton is safe from the sea but that is not so.

Marine experts have been extremely clever in making the resort’s multitudinous pebbles play their part in protection. Arches, which once were flooded many times each year, are now generally dry.

The trick was achieved by banking up shingle where it was most needed by installing groynes and halting the eastward drift.

Those groynes are built from irregular rather than smooth slabs to break up the full force of stormy seas.

But the sea is rising inexorably. If the West Pier had been restored earlier this century, it would have had to be more than four feet higher than the original 1866 structure.

The Argus has just published maps showing how much of the county is expected to be underwater in 30 years’ time. Low lying towns such as Worthing and Eastbourne are remarkably vulnerable while Lancing will become a lake. Rivers are particularly prone to flooding as residents know to their cost.

Lewes was badly flooded in 1960 and 2000 while there have been many more minor incidents. Even benign rivers such as the Uck at Uckfield can become dangerous while small streams sometimes turn into torrents.

I remember a flood in Storrington caused by three inches of rain falling in a few hours on to an already swollen stream.

The authorities said it was a once in a century incident. It happened again the next week.

I live close to the sea in Hove and have generally regarded my home as being safe from floods. But Hove has more than two miles of seafront to protect, all of it low-lying.

There are tell-tale signs of impending vulnerability such as how high the sea goes up storm water marker poles and the huge amounts of shingle thrown up by autumn tempests this year.

Flood protection is extremely expensive as recent work at Shoreham demonstrated. And it is not always pretty. It is also ongoing. The Undercliff Walk, so expertly created by those miners, had to be rebuilt 40 years later at vast expense.

Cliff erosion can affect roads as well as homes. The A259 is not far from the cliff edge at Telscombe Cliffs and if that were to close, the effect on traffic would be calamitous.

Flood protection will become a major issue in years to come, so we need to take action.

Within 30 years, Trimingham will disappear and so will I. It could be a close run contest to see who becomes submerged first.