A clifftop footpath in Cromer has been re-opened four years after being closed for safety reasons.

The Marrams footpath, a vital link between Cromer's Runton Road car park and the Melbourne beach access slope, was closed in January 2007 following a cliff slip, but through North Norfolk District Council's Coastal Pathfinder project the path has been successfully re-routed and is now safe to use. It is being officially opened on Thursday.

The re-routing of the path would not have been possible without the co-operation of the Burns family, who owned the land over which part of the realigned path now runs. Support for the scheme was also received from the Cromer Town and Norfolk County Councils.

Construction work began in mid January 2011 and has now been substantially completed.

To complete the process the old footpath will now need to be formally closed and the new, re-alligned, route to be formally dedicated as a public right of way.

In 2009 NNDC was awarded �3m from the �11 million funded national Coastal Change Pathfinder Programme operated by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for local authorities to explore ways of helping coastal communities plan and adapt to coastal change.

One of the projects NNDC has been able to undertake under the Pathfinder scheme is the work on the Marrams footpath.