‘I am sick of this. If my house goes, I will go with it.  I am sick of dealing with these a******** from the council and the environment agency as well as the media who have been apologists for them!’ 

It is fair to say that Malcolm Newell is not a happy man. But when you consider his situation, can you blame him? 

In May 2020, his retirement plans were shattered when the house at the end of his lane, aptly named Cliffhanger – toppled over the cliff in what the council insists was a ‘slip’ caused by natural erosion. 

On that fateful day, residents of Surf Crescent, Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey were ordered to leave their homes with experts fearing a complete collapse was possible. 

In the intervening years, Malcolm and his fellow residents have been battling both the tides and the authorities in their desperation to shore up the foundations of the cliff on which their now worthless homes sit. 

The expensive campaign, which saw residents fund their own digger and lorry deliveries of mud, was controversial on the island before being shut down by the council. 

To further complicate matters, the Environment Agency accused the residents of fly tipping and ‘contaminating the soil’ by dumping mud and clay over the edge.

Now five years on from the slip that changed their lives forever, Malcolm is fed up and is determined to make his point. 

Speaking to MailOnline after some persuasion, Malcolm insisted that from the get-go, residents have been ignored and abandoned by their council and scapegoated by fellow islanders and the Environment Agency – an organisation he says he wouldn’t mind ‘shooting.’ 

He said: ‘We’ve been treated very unfairly. We’ve had this before with different media. The BBC is one of the world’s worst reporters because they were here with me and I got about three seconds of screen time.

‘The rest is the Environment Agency, the council bullies and every other b****** slinging mud at us.’ 

In 2023, the Environment Agency closed access to the Eastchurch Gap, a cliff face yards from the collapse which overlooks the houses of residents, to investigate the illegal dumping of waste. 

When MailOnline visited the site this week, we saw no evidence of fly tipping at the cliffs however a swimming pool which fell into the crater as well as debris from the stricken house remain in the hole five years after the collapse. 

Malcolm continued: ‘Do you see any flytipping? Any evidence at all? No, of course you don’t – because we’re not doing it, but that lie has been spread around and now the whole island is against us! 

‘We haven’t had tipping for over two years since they first put the order on there and it was never the residents tipping. If you look in the hole there, the plastic and the debris is all from the house. 

‘Why hasn’t the Environment Agency been down to clean that away? And they have the nerve to say we are contaminating the soil by dumping mud from up the road? It is scandalous. 

‘I’m looking at nature all the time around here. We’ve got rabbits moved in on the cliffside and the grass is growing. We don’t want to destroy the coastline, we want to save our homes. And we don’t care what people who don’t live here think of that.’

Malcolm and fellow residents have lost count of how much of their own money they have poured into their makeshift sea defenses. ‘It’s over £10,000’, he admits, ‘and we have had no help from the council who claim the erosion is inevitable, but we know the truth. 

It is the belief of the disgruntled residents that the fatal slip was not caused by the sea but by a ‘sinkhole’ brought on by a decade of sewage running down the cliffs from nearby caravan sites. 

In 2023, after years of being ‘ignored’ Malcolm’s neighbour Edd Cane, 71, took matters into his own hands and hired a digger to move mud up and down the cliff to shore up its foundations. 

He ploughed £18,000 of his own pension into the effort only for it to be shut down by the council. Two years later, grass has grown over the ‘contaminated soil’ he was accused of dumping. 

The irony isn’t lost on him. 

‘The council stopped it because they said it was contaminated soil and all this nonsense’, he told MailOnline in his garden which overlooks the shear drop. 

‘If that was contaminated, nothing would be growing. They’ve been trying to sue the lorries that dump the soil for us. 

‘They have no interest in saving our houses, they are more interested in coming after us for the steps we have taken to solve the problem ourselves. They are pathetic.’ 

The anger that Edd and others feel towards their local authority is palpable and disarming, but he says it is more than justified. 

He continues: ‘Nobody here has any options. I went to the council and said ‘Look, my house is going to go over the cliff and I have no money in my pocket, can you help?’

‘They told me to fill out a form, and wouldn’t you know, I don’t qualify for social housing! They sent me a list of estate agents instead!

‘The last few people from the environment agency and the council I’ve just told to f*** off. They are not on our side and never have been. 

‘Nobody fly tips here regardless of what they say. The swimming pool has been sat there for five years, they’ve done nothing and they have the nerve to say we’re tipping. 

‘And they recently build new defences down at Shelness!

‘It happened about a month after the collapse. There’s one cafe and a campsite there – but there’s no money or motivation to help us. They are all a joke.’ 

Many residents are justifiably angry and five years on from the collapse, time is running out. 

Mr and Mrs Green, who preferred not to be fully named due to ‘hostility’ from others on the island, are resigned to the fact their home, which is now the last on the lane, will soon be gone. 

The couple say they have been told they have five years left in the property and told MailOnline they have nowhere to go. 

Mr Green said: ‘We have been told we have five years left. We’ve considered not paying our taxes over it, but then they’d arrest us and they’d win. It’s a crap situation.’

Mrs Green added: ‘The other islanders and council refer to us as a shanty town.

‘They would rather we all abandon our homes and spare them the aggravation. We have spent thousands trying to save our homes and the island has now turned on us because we have been painted as fly tippers.’ 

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: ‘We recognise the impact the erosion incident has had on householders at Eastchurch and protecting the community and local environment remains our top priority.

‘We are currently investigating the illegal tipping of waste at the site and continue to work with the local council on management of the area.’

Swale Borough Council has been approached for comment.