INVESTIGATIONS will take place in the next year that could lead to a £15m programme to shore up cliffs along the Hampshire coastline.

The Environment Agency has paid £300,000 for borehole drilling and pumping tests at Barton on Sea in the New Forest.

The action of water between layers of the famous fossil-bearing Barton clay means that the cliffs there are sliding – or ‘slumping’ – meaning that the cliff edge gets ever closer to Marine Drive East and Marine Drive West and to homes and businesses.

Properties, including a café, have disappeared over the crumbling cliff edge in past decades and New Forest District Council, which last carried out major anti-erosion drainage works there about 20 years ago, wants to stop more following.

The £300,000 will pay for ground investigations to be carried out, and to examine alternative methods of stabilising the cliffs and build a business case.

Council coastal group officer Steve Cook will lead the project. He said that funding for the major project would still have to be obtained “but this is a step in the right direction”.

Yesterday the Daily Echo revealed how a dog walker lay injured through the night on a cliff ledge at Barton after falling 60ft.

The 64-year-old man was stranded for more than 12 hours with knee and rib injuries before rescuers were alerted.

They described it as “miraculous” that he had survived.

The man, who has not been named, was walking his terrier when it is thought that they slipped and fell through scrub and came to a halt on the muddy ledge.