What has caused this coastal erosion?

Kane Cunningham, a landscape painter, bought this house at Knipe Point for £3,000 in December 2009 to use as an art installation to document its collapse into the sea. Among the 12 people invited to a recent "last supper" at the property was former cabinet minister Clare Short.

Retired engineer Peter Boggis has spent a number of years fighting to save his home from falling into the sea in Suffolk. In December 2008 a judge ruled that a decision to allow the fossil-bearing cliffs near his home to continue to erode for scientific reasons was unlawful. But this ruling was overturned in the High Court in October Now Mr Boggis must now apply for planning permission to install his own erosion defences.

Houses close to the cliff tops at Happisburgh in north Norfolk have been at risk for years. Large chunks of the sandy cliffs fall into the sea regularly, thanks to the poor quality of wooden defences built in the 1950s. Campaigners concerned about the erosion of the Norfolk coastline say offshore dredging is partly to blame.

Cliff Farm on the east coast of England, close to Skipsea in the East Riding of Yorkshire, has been teetering on the edge of the North Sea for years. Fields that were once at the front of the property have long since disappeared. In February 2010 it was announced that a number of homes in East Yorkshire at danger of falling into the sea are to be bought by the local council.

Some parts of the North Sea coastline have been crumbling for more than a decade. This was the scene at the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough after a massive landslide in Scarborough Borough Council was later held liable for the destruction of the hotel after it was found to be in breach of its duty of care to maintain the supporting land.

The view outside the home of one resident of Great Cowden near Hornsea in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Coastal erosion has brought the cliff edge to only a few feet from many front doors. The sea is estimated to be eating away at the land at a rate of 30 feet a year.