The Solent today
The information presented on the following pages was extracted from The Book of the Solent, edited by Maldwin Drummond and Robin McInnes, published by Cross Publishing 2001 (ISBN 0901281301). The Solent Protection Society is grateful to the authors, editors and publishers for their kind permission to use it on this website.
Introduction
The Solent today is, perhaps one of the most intensively used coastal areas in the U.K. Extending from Hurst Spit to Selsey Bill and including th…
The Solent's economy
The Solent's sheltered natural harbours and inshore waters made it an idea location for ports to develop. On the mainland activity centre on the…
Recreation and the Solent
The Solent has a long association with sailing and yachting and is acknowledged as a site of international importance for boating activity. Yacht…
The natural environment
There are twenty-seven Sites of Special Scientific Interest, three Special Protection Areas, three National Nature Reserves and one Special Area…
Fragmentation of responsibility
The responsibility for the planning and management of the Solent lies with numerous authorities. In total there are twenty-six relevant authoriti…
The need for a co-ordinated approach
With so many different authorities and agencies having management responsibilities across the Solent system, there is a danger that this estuarin…
The multiplicity of plans in the '90s
A second strand of coastal management throughout the 1990's has seen the development of management plans for a wide variety of purposes. There ar…
Development of a management scheme
The development of a management scheme for the Solent European Marine Sites provides a good example of how all the relevant authorities in the So…
SCOPAC and the Solent Forum
The need for closer working partnerships within the Solent's coastal Community led to the establishment of two coastal fora, the Standing Confere…
Development pressures
The Solent, like many other coastal areas around the UK, has many human demands placed upon it. For centuries people have lived by the Solent, us…
Cumulative impact
One concern that has come increasingly to the fore in recent years in the potential cumulative impact of the various proposed developments and ac…
Challenges for the next millennium
The ongoing focus, as has been the case over the latter half of the last century, is on the balancing of environmental, commercial and recreation…