Artist’s studio faces demolition after cliff landslides (From York Press)

Artist’s studio faces demolition after cliff landslides at Knipe Point near Cayton Bay

8:38am Wednesday 23rd January 2013 in News By Megi Rychlikova, megi.rychlikova@thepress.co.uk

A NORTH Yorkshire artist has been given three weeks to leave his home after a landslide left it precariously perched on a seaside cliff.

Kane Cunnningham blames Yorkshire Water and McCain Foods for the earth movement at Knipe Point near Cayton Bay.

Another landslide in 2008 led to three other houses in the community so close to falling into woodland below they had to be bulldozed.

Now he has been told his house is next to be demolished.

He posted on his Facebook page: “I have been told I have three weeks left in the house!”

He also claimed: “It has now become clear Yorkshire Water and Maccains [sic] chips are to blame for the leaks and landslips.”

His comments came after independent geological experts carried out a study of the area. Knipe Point is on top of a tall cliff above woodland.

The report claims water issuing from the cliff face has mineral levels similar to those found in potato waste. A Yorkshire Water pipeline carrying waste from McCain oven chip and food plant in Scarborough passes near Knipe Point.

Spokesmen for Yorkshire Water and McCain said the organisations were assessing details of the report which was completed last month.

The McCain spokesman said: “We have participated constructively on a voluntary basis in past authoritative studies which have concluded that inherent and unstable geological conditions at Knipe Point are the most probable reason.”

Mr Cunningham bought the house for £3,000 in 2009 knowing it had been condemned and was likely to fall into the sea. A few years earlier it had been valued at £160,000.

He intended to install cameras inside the house to record its last moments and make an artwork out of its demise.

He said in 2009: “It’s the perfect site-specific installation: a stark reminder of lost dreams, financial disaster and threatening sea levels. It’s global recession and global warming encapsulated.

“This little house is only feet away from the edge of the cliff – it can go at any moment.”

Knipe Point is a retirement community mostly inhabited by elderly people. Over several years, Scarborough Borough Council has proposed rehousing the occupants in houses further away from the sea.