Hayling Island Coastal Management Strategy FAQs

The Environment Agency are responsible for the allocation of Flood Defence Grant in Aid funding made available from Defra. They decide which schemes are allocated funding nationally based on technical, environmental and economic factors. The Environment Agency are also an equivalent Risk Management Authority (RMA), carrying out maintenance works to their assets and managing aspects of flood risk on Hayling Island. We are currently working closely with local Environment Agency officers throughout the delivery of the Strategy as a key partner of the project and with representation on the Project Steering Group, to help achieve the projects objectives and align with national strategic guidance. For more information on the role of the Environment Agency, visit their website.

AECOM are an engineering consultancy with a wealth of experience in coastal management studies and schemes. They have been appointed by Havant Borough Council to provide specialist consultancy services to assist with the coastal management strategy for Hayling Island. AECOM officers are based in Basingstoke, live locally and know the Solent area very well having supported delivery of Coastal Strategies on the Isle of Wight and in Fareham and Gosport, in addition to supporting the Langstone Coastal Defence Scheme.

To find out more about what a Coastal Management Strategy is, and what is means for Hayling Island, please visit the Story Map here. For an example of a completed Strategy, please visit here.

Hayling Island has a population of over 17,000 and has approximately 38km of coastline.

Being an island community, climate change is one of the largest challenges Hayling Island will face. It poses a significant threat to the economy, environment, health and way of life. Rising sea levels due to climate change are predicted to significantly increase the level of coastal flood and erosion risk on the island.

If no flood defences were to be in place, a total of 335 residential and commercial properties would be at risk on the Island from an extreme (0.5% AEP) tidal flood event. With sea level rise, in 100 years, these figures rise to 3,158 properties at tidal flood risk, with an additional 795 properties at risk from coastal erosion by 2121 if no defences were in place. Access and egress on and off the island to the mainland via the sole road bridge connection (A3023) is also at risk.

In order to manage these risks into the future, the North Solent Shoreline Management Plan (NSSMP) (http://www.northsolentsmp.co.uk/) recommended the need to develop a coastal management strategy for the Hayling Island coastline. Unlike the surrounding coastline, there is currently no Island-wide coastal management strategy in place for Hayling Island and previous strategic studies undertaken on Hayling Island are now out of date.

The Strategy will cover approximately 38km of coastline around the entirety of the Hayling Island, including both the highly dynamic wave dominated open coast and the more sheltered tidally dominated harbour shorelines. The east and west of the Island face Chichester and Langstone harbours respectively and the south of the Island faces onto the Solent and the English Channel.

For the initial piece of work, (Part 1: Hayling Island Funding and Implementation Strategy ((HIFIS)), 190,000 of Government funding was successfully secured to review the existing baseline information and confirm the need for a full strategy. The project team were successful in securing a further £410,000 of funding to deliver Part 2: The Hayling Island Coastal Management Strategy. This funding is a combination of Flood Defence Grant in Aid from Central Government, allocated by the Environment Agency (EA), and Havant Borough Council (HBC) funding from Community Infrastructure Levy.

Flood defence Grant in Aid is a capital grant available to Risk Management Authorities made available through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The current Partnership Funding mechanism weights most funding towards the delivery of Outcome Measure 2 (the number of households benefiting from improved protection from flooding) and Outcome Measure 3 (The number of households benefiting from reduced risk of coastal erosion).

For further information, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/flood-and-coastal-erosion-riskmanagement-outcome-measures.

Community Infrastructure Levy is a levy that local authorities can charge on new developments in their area. The rate is based on per square metre. The money collected through this levy can be used to fund additional infrastructure required to support new development including roads, schools, coastal flood defences, green spaces and community facilities.

For further information, please visit: https://www.havant.gov.uk/community-infrastructure-levy

Flood and erosion risks, coastal defence types, land uses, land ownership and issues and opportunities vary along The Strategy frontage. For effective flood and erosion risk management options to be developed it is important to consider and recognise this local variability. With this in mind, the frontage was divided into 16 small, more manageable local sections known as Option Development Units (ODUs). The creation of the ODUs provides the flexibility to develop coastal management options on an area by area basis to ensure that those identified are appropriate at the local scale, taking into account local needs, but still comply with national guidelines.

HBC Local Plan information. www.havant.gov.uk/localplan

A Local Plan forms the starting point in every planning decision. The plan sets out the vision for future development in the borough, identifies what areas should be developed, and what requirements and standards developers should meet in their proposals.

Every area in England and Wales should have an up-to-date Local Plan in place and review it at least every five years. Havant Borough Council are preparing a new Local Plan, ‘The Building a Better Future Plan’ for Havant which will set out how the borough should be developed into the future.

The Building a Better Future Plan will be the new Local Plan for Havant Borough. The Local Plan will address the needs and opportunities for development in the Borough, and set out how much, what type and where development will take place.

Landowners have ultimate responsibility for maintaining or improving their own defences,  but must act within statutory planning regulations and other applicable legislation.

Coastal Protection Authorities and the Environment Agency have permissive powers to carry out works to protect against coastal flooding and erosion. However, this is not a legal obligation. This means Havant Borough Council, has the ‘power’ to carry out coastal protection works, but is not duty bound to do so and will not be liable for the failure to exercise these powers.

In general, Local Authorities and the Environment Agency will only act where there is a wide public benefit and an affordable appropriate engineering solution that is achievable.

A bi-modal sea state exists where high energy swell waves generated in the Atlantic Ocean occur alongside locally generated wind waves (shorter period but higher wave height). The result is a high energy environment that can do a lot of damage through increased overtopping of our beaches and sea defences. Given the proximity of Hayling Island, it is susceptible to these bi-modal wave conditions when long period swell waves refract around the Isle of Wight, coinciding with local storm conditions.

For further information, please vitist:  https://coastalpartners.org.uk/bimodal-summary.

We are fortunate to now have a wave buoy at Hayling that is sensitive enough to record when bi-modal wave conditions occur. In 2021 we completed a study which looked into the impact of bi-modal waves. Along with the new wave data, HR Wallingford provided insight into how bi-modal seas affect our shingle beaches. Since then, the industry has since made significant steps forward in our understanding of these wave conditions, but lacks new design tools to consider their effects, which are still in the research and development stage. Using the government approved flood model we have made appropriate allowances in the Strategy for any uncertainties and undertaken sensitivity testing.

However, we recognise that there is a need for further research into this topic, to create new analysis and design tools to consider bi-modal waves, which are a particular risk to the South Coast of England. As a result, a further Bi-modal wave study has been included on the Strategies’ Short Term Action Plan. Subject to securing funding, this study will allow a more detailed assessment on bi-modal waves to be undertaken to enhance our understanding and feed into future scheme appraisal and design along the open beach frontages.