For 90 years there has been a campground at the idyllic seaside spot of Clifton in Hawke’s Bay.

It came to a sudden end last week when geotech assessments found that inhabitants and structures were at risk of a potentially catastrophic and deadly landslide from the hill above the camp.

Since its inception in 1936, coastal erosion has been nipping away at the waterfront site, and it’s long been thought that would eventually be the nail in the camp’s coffin.

But the danger posed by the steep hill has also been known, since at least 2011, when a slip at the campground prompted a geotech assessment. That found “multiple shallow landslide and debris flow mechanisms affecting the slopes” above the campground and “elevated susceptibility to slope reactivation under adverse conditions”.