A defiant former soldier vowed to carry on fighting the sea as he began a bid to drag his home back from a 50ft cliff.
Lance Martin, 65, faced a race against time to move his wooden chalet before council officials ordered him to demolish it.
He and his partner Tracey yesterday desperately dug out foundations at the rear of their home overlooking the sea in Hemsby, Norfolk.
The couple are planning to attach chains to telegraph poles at the front and back of the two bedroom house to form a frame for a digger to drag their home back 6ft.
Lance, a former Grenadier Guard, was forced to draw up his rescue plan after erosion caused by recent tidal surges left his home teetering just 3ft from the edge of the cliff.
He said he was determined to carry on living in his house with its panoramic views of the North Sea which he likens to “the world’s best infinity pool”.
He said: “I hope it means that I will be able to live here for another 20 years. There is no way that I am going to give up now.
“You can actually hear the rumble of the sea through the building when you go to bed. It is just a fantastic way to live.”
Lance and his partner were forced to evacuate their home last Thursday after huge sections of the sandy cliff and his fence were swept away.
The couple have since removed all their possessions from the two bedroom chalet which is the last house remaining on the seaward side of The Marrams.
Lance aims to give himself some breathing space by using a digger to drag his home around 6ft back on to his last remaining piece of front garden.
He hopes to excavate a bank on the other side of the road, allowing him to eventually winch his house up to 20m to a new place of safety.
It is the second time that he has moved his house due to coastal erosion as he had to do the same in 2018 just a year after he bought it.
Officials from Great Yarmouth Borough Council have threatened to put a Section 78 order on his home requiring it to be demolished if the bid to move it fails.
But they have given Lance and his partner a temporary reprieve to wait and see if they can successfully drag the house to safety.
Lance, who has no buildings insurance due to the perilous position of his home, admitted he would be “devastated” if the bid to move it failed.
But he added: “I will shed a tear for a minute or two, but then I will pack my bags and move on.
“I won’t be homeless. It will just be the end of that fantastic infinity pool behind me and waking up to that every morning.
“The council first of all gave me a week to ten days to move it, but the erosion has been rapid and I heard that I am ‘number one’ on their demolition list.
“It’s worrying and upsetting obviously. I can only work as fast as people can get machinery to me. I can’t do anything else. I’m at their behest.
That’s why I am putting out a call for as much machinery and plant as possible so we can get it done asap.
“I am ever the optimist. There are always opportunities. I will find somewhere. I had 22 years in the Army so you learn to walk away from things and put them in little boxes and when you need to revisit it you go back to it. That is my attitude to things.
“It’s life. I know we live in a blame culture, but there is nobody to blame for this. You can’t blame the council for what’s happened on the beach.”
Three homes in the northern part of The Marrams were demolished on the orders of the council last weekend following the latest high tides.
Lance bought his bungalow for £95,000 in 2017 after taking early retirement from his job as a Whitehall security officer and selling his flat in Dagenham, Essex.
At the time he had 120ft between his home and the cliff, which was eroding at the rate of a metre a year, giving him up to 40 years at the spot.
But the rate accelerated during his first winter in his new home, and the Beast from the East storm in February 2018 led to about 90ft of cliff being washed away in just two nights.
During the second night of mountainous seas, he heard a rumble and looked down to see the waves beneath his kitchen floor, as his home was left hanging precariously over the edge.
He and a neighbour used a grinding saw to cut through floor and ceiling joists at 10pm to let his kitchen and a bedroom drop into the sea.
Lance moved into a caravan for eight weeks while the council made demolition orders requiring his home and a dozen others on the cliff to be knocked down to stop them falling over the edge.
While other homes were demolished, Mr Martin was determined to preserve his and winched it 30ft further back from the cliff with the help of a local farmer.
But the bungalow, which was already rotten, was badly damaged in the process, meaning that it had to be completely rebuilt as a two bedroom home, keeping one of the same internal walls to avoid the council classing it as a new structure.
He is holding on to the hope that the Government will eventually fund a £12million project to put 1km long rock berm sea defences along the length of beach at Hemsby to protect the entire village.
A Great Yarmouth Borough Council contractor yesterday began delivering 1,900 tons of rock onto the beach as the first part of the project.
Lance said he was optimistic that the rock berm would permanently safeguard his home if it ended up being built.
He added: “Maybe they could have put down the rock berm or sea defences years earlier, but that’s a moot point. You have to put it behind you and move on. You live for today, and not what’s gone.
“It is going to be a good structure three metres deep in the sand and 5m above and pear shaped above the sea with the front of it facing the tide so it breaks the force of the sea. It will save all the properties.
“I definitely won’t leave Hemsby. I just love the place. I love the people and the wildlife, the seals and the seabirds in my infinity pool. I just love the area.”
