Coastal Partners as part of Fareham Borough Council has secured £556,000 from Defra Grant in Aid to commence a two-year study focusing on the future management of Hook Lake (part of the Hook with Warsash Nature Reserve) and opportunities to create new habitat at the site.

The Solent coastline is facing significant pressure from rising sea levels, more frequent and bigger storms, and increased flood and erosion risk. As a result, important coastal habitats such as saltmarshes are slowly being lost as they are squeezed against existing sea defences.

Hook Lake has been chosen as a potential area to create new coastal habitat to offset these losses in the Hamble Estuary and the wider Solent. The creation of new compensatory habitat is a legal requirement and will help to offset habitat losses today and in the future from new defence schemes. This new habitat must be reinstated in order to enable future coastal defence schemes in our area to progress.

The Hook Lake Coastal Management Study will look to maximise the potential benefits for both local people and wildlife to ensure that Hook Lake remains a special place. Through the study we will explore the potential for creating new habitats, look at wider recreation opportunities and develop preliminary designs for a scheme.

Coastal Partners is a partnership between Fareham Borough Council, Gosport Borough Council, Havant Borough Council, and Portsmouth City Council. The partnership has coastal engineers from each authority working in one team to manage 162km of coastline across the Eastern Solent.

We will be working in partnership with key stakeholders including Hampshire County Council (who own and manage Hook Lake), the Environment Agency and the River Hamble Harbour Authority, alongside the community to deliver this coastal management study.

Councillor Simon Martin, Fareham Borough Council Executive Member for Planning and Development, said: I am delighted that the project team were able to secure funding for this important study. Creating new habitats here will enable other coastal defence projects in the Borough to progress in the future and at the same time allow continued enjoyment of this coastline for years to come”.

To stay up to date on the project, please visit our project webpages at https://coastalpartners.org.uk/project/hook-lake-coastal-management-study, where you can also sign up to receive updates to your inbox via our new ‘Fareham Coastal Projects e-Newsletter’.

Coastal Partners contact is coastal.team@havant.gov.uk