Crazy paving

Walking home from town via the old harbour I peered through the gate behnd one of the  cottages that back onto the quay. They're all holiday lets now but from the street still look like traditional two-up two-down homes which must have had small gardens behind. There's just a car/boat park between them and the water's edge.

I was astonished to find this (recently-installed) "vitrified porcelain paving" (so the words claim) providing a smooth unbroken surface like a dance floor. Oh so practical and maintenance-free for holiday makers and cottage cleaners BUT this particular location is highly vulnerable to inundation. Already at the highest tides, and especially in stormy weather, sea water floods the parking area* and laps on to the [main S-N coastal] A487 trunk road. The community of Lower Fishguard will be one of the first to require a bypass (or a bridge) before the predicted sea level rise makes the road at times impassible later this century. 

... unless the whole community is  abandoned as is to be the fate of the coastal village of Fairbourne in North Wales, predicted to be uninhabitable by 2054.

The paving of gardens and grassy spaces has become a matter of wider  concern not only because of rising tides but also in regard to heavier rainfall resulting from climate change.  The run-off overloads the drains and adds to the possibility of surface flooding.  A news item just a few days ago reported a suggestion that property-owners in London be paid compensation for removing paving from their gardens for this reason. 
A similar scheme already exists in the Netherlands as a way to restore urban green spaces.

Full marks to another back garden nearby (and higher up) where shortage of growing area has been remedied by the use of builders' bags to produce a fine crop of runner beans - extra.

* My blip from 2013 showing the flooded carpark behind the cottage. The situation has not improved over the past ten years.