For those who long to live by the sea, the thought of gently breaking waves and waking by the beach sums up the irresistible charm of coastal life. But not, perhaps, in the Yorkshire village of Skipsea.

Residents in the tiny seaside parish were warned this week that a large number of homes are at “imminent risk” of tumbling into the North Sea within 12 months because of the rapid erosion of the East Yorkshire coast.

For decades the picturesque seaside from Bridlington to Withernsea has been a haven for holidaymakers from across the country. But it is quickly becoming known for another reason: it is the fastest-eroding coastline in northern Europe.

Figures published this week showed that parts of the coast were disappearing far faster than first thought. A combination of stormy weather and rising sea levels caused more than 10 metres of cliff to disappear from a 2-mile stretch of coast in just nine months last year, compared with the annual average of 4 metres. In just six months, three strips of coastline lost nearly double what they expected to lose in a year.

On Green Lane, residents are on the frontline of this unwinnable war with nature. “You can get up one morning and open your curtains and you’ve lost your fence, or your garden’s gone,” said Carly Davis, 30, whose rented chalet is one of more than 20 home at imminent risk of being swallowed by the sea in the next year.

Davis, not her real name, points to the half-missing fence at the foot of her garden and the wet clay cliff, freshly-exposed by the waves. All along her street, huge chunks are missing from gardens and the cliff is just 9 metres from some people’s back doors. The main road that once led to their street now ends precipitously at the cliff edge. A bright red sign warns: “Danger. Cliffs subject to coastal erosion. DO NOT PROCEED.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest End of the road in Skipsea. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Davis moved into her rented home only two months ago so she could live next to her friends. Her son, 12, loves his seafront bedroom but they know it is not a forever home. “You sit here and the waves hit your window and you think: it’s getting close. You go check it for fresh soil all the time and you think: how long have I actually got left?”

Looking out to sea, she mused: “It’s a monster, that thing, but then again it’s beautiful. You see the sunset and you think it’s gorgeous, then you hear the crashing waves and you think it’s a monster – it’s a destroyer.”

An abandoned amusement arcade stands at the end of Davis’s street, opposite a large hole where Skipsea beach social club served seaside drinkers for 80 years before it was demolished last year. There is no longer public access to the beach, though hardy residents have been known to clamber down ladders from their gardens in summer.

The erosion of Yorkshire’s soft clay coast is not a new phenomenon: about 30 villages have been lost to the sea since the Middle Ages. The steady nibbling away began about 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, but the global climate emergency has accelerated the process. Rising sea levels and more frequent volatile storms have seen huge chunks of land disappear in the past 20 years.

“You would have to be Donald Trump to say climate change isn’t happening,” said David Elvidge, who will chair an East Riding council meeting next week to discuss measures to protect homeowners. “There have been occasions on certain areas of the coast where a bad storm has taken in a single night what you would expect to go in three or four years.”

The average annual erosion rate remains about 2 metres a year for the whole 52-mile coastline. In Skipsea, there is anger that neighbouring towns and villages have been protected by sea defences but their parish, with its population of about 700, has not. Sea defences are decided on a cost-benefit analysis, with large urban areas and important industries prioritised over farmland and individual houses. On that basis, Skipsea must brave the waves.

“There’s half a mile of land gone in 20 years,” said John Keay, 64, serving afternoon pints at the village’s newly-built social club half a mile inland. “You wouldn’t mind if they were trying to slow the erosion down but they’re not – they’re just letting it go. My argument is how far do you want it to go?”

Some residents on Green Lane feel the council has not done enough to protect them from erosion or help them to move nearby. As it stands, they will also have to pay thousands of pounds towards the cost of demolishing their homes. Some have already chosen to leave but many of those who remain were too angry and upset to talk to journalists this week.

One 80-year-old man, whose wife died recently, said he had lived in his seaside bungalow for 25 years and could not imagine moving. “I’m losing my home. It’s been like this for seven years. I’m at my rock’s end with it,” he said. Another woman added: “I am really furious but I don’t want to talk. They have big meetings and get some money but nothing ever comes to us.”

As the tide moves towards her garden, Davis vowed to stay put for as long as she could: “The view, the community and the friends – we’re all a big family down here and we help each other. But you see people leaving and we’re getting less and less and less.”