CORNWALL’S sea walls, harbour arms and breakwaters protect far more than the land they occupy. They can shelter homes, businesses, roads and utilities and, while they may look like public assets, the land is often owned privately or by harbour trusts or charities.

Nearly 90 per cent of Cornwall’s coastal flood and erosion assets are in council or private ownership. Some historic harbour structures have no verifiable owner.

For smaller organisations, responsibility for major marine infrastructure can be daunting. A trust may manage day-to-day upkeep, but structural repairs can run into very substantial sums.

Historically, Cornwall Council and its predecessor authorities have carried out repairs to coastal defences on third-party land. But the council’s position is changing. Now, where no formal agreement can be found placing an ongoing maintenance obligation on it, it says responsibility for maintenance rests with the landowner.

I understand the financial pressures behind that approach, but changing policy in this way has consequences. If the council is going to step back from maintaining structures it has previously supported, realistic and accessible funding arrangements need to be in place first. It is not enough to transfer responsibility to a charity or harbour trust that has no practical means of meeting the cost.

I have been working to support East Looe Town Trust in its case for continued maintenance support for the concrete sea defences known locally as the Blocks.

My research at Kresen Kernow found that the scheme was promoted by Looe Urban District Council, approved under the Coast Protection Act 1949 and funded 85 per cent by central government, with the remainder split between Cornwall County Council and the district council. I found no evidence that East Looe Town Trust contributed anything beyond making its land available for the scheme.

Cornwall Council has undertaken repairs over the years, but now says that, in the absence of a formal agreement, responsibility rests with the Trust as landowner.

The history may not settle the legal position, but it should carry weight.

Changes to national funding introduced this year may make major refurbishment easier to finance, but routine maintenance remains harder to fund. That gap needs addressing if responsibility for more coastal structures is to shift towards landowners.

Cornwall needs a clear register of significant coastal defences, showing who owns them, who maintains them, their condition and what they protect. Disputed cases should be identified before a major failure.

Where a defence protects roads, utilities, businesses or communities, its funding should reflect that wider public benefit.

Some structures will eventually need adaptation rather than continued repair. But no coastal defence should be left to deteriorate simply because responsibility has shifted faster than the funding needed to support it.