Anna Glanville-Hearson attended from Havant Civic Society, along with David Stratton and the HBC Team, Cllr Tim Pike and attendees from all sections of the Langstone Community including the owner of the Mill House and the Royal Oak.
The contractors present for Eastern Solent Coastal Partnership were AECOM and Flood Control International.
The meeting started with a review of the aims of the project – mainly to accommodate a possible additional 68cm over the current highest (5.4m) tides.
Since the last meeting the HBC Coastal Team has done a habitat survey and a heritage survey. They have been working with Historic England and found no archaeological remains that would interfere with the programme.
Top line choices were:
- Do nothing;
- Do the minimum (reactive repairs as necessary);
- Maintain (proactive repair without improving)
and
- Improve (make footpaths wider, install higher sea walls, demountable barriers, flip-up barriers, walls with glass panels above).
Surveys highlighted that ‘the life of the current defences was less than we thought’ and confirmed the need to improve the defences.
They have looked at a long list of options for each section of the programme following national guidance tailored to the local area. The team showed how the long list reduced down to a shortlist of options for each section of the 4 sections of the programme.
They finally arrived at three improvement options for each of the four frontages of the project:
- Mill Lane and Harbourside
- Langstone Sailing Club and Spit
- Langstone village and coastal path between the Ship and the Royal Oak
- The Mill, the Mill Pond and footpath around the Mill Pond (in private ownership but path is maintained by HCC)
The Coastal Team is proposing to get funding from the Government Coastal Defences fund but this will not cover everything. They also intend to apply for funding from the Community Infrastructure Levy and also the ‘Local Levy’.
In an email to Mark Stratton and the team we have suggested a couple of other sources of funding as we think it’s as much a community and leisure access programme as it is a coastal defences programme. Our representative at the meeting has been down there twice lately as part of a large Walking for Health group; thousands of people use the footpaths and the pubs and it is expected to be really busy on Boxing Day!
There are two public exhibitions of the proposals coming up, see our earlier post for details of dates, times and locations.
Havant Civic Society 