RTPI PLanning Awards 2009

27-Jan-10

Solent Waterfront Strategy - Adams Hendry Consulting Ltd

Spatial Strategies Award Winner

Sponsored by Department of Communities and Local Government

Summary

The Solent waterfront strategy provides for the first time an evidence base, analysis and strategy for marine industries and marine-related industries across the Solent sub-region. It provides an exemplar of best practice by highlighting the depth of knowledge and insights needed to underpin a strategic plan for a major sub-region.

Background

The Solent waterfront strategy contains the international port of Southampton, the main base of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth, and some of the best known waters in world yachting, within a city region of 1.2 million people, with substantial environmental resources in an outstanding coastal setting. In spite of their significance to the economy, study showed that there was inadequate knowledge of marine and related industries, and as a result their significance was undervalued. Possibly because they are not in a single standard industrial classification they were largely ignored in spatial policies at all levels. They were regarded as a problem industry to such an extent that their survival was being put at risk, despite the fact that they produce or use some of the most advanced technologies alongside traditional skills, employing a highly skilled workforce and are responsible for around 30% of GVA in the sub-region.

Project Description

The Strategy was prepared by a team led by Adams Hendry Consulting Ltd, with WS Atkins and Marina Projects Ltd, and commissioned by the South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA). The study assessed the economic impact of marine and related industries via a business survey, undertaking a marine facilities and sites audit, considering future trends via interviews and workshops, and reviewing existing and emerging planning policies and strategies at national, regional, sub-regional and local scale. Data collection included recording of key strategic sites, a telephone survey of 480 companies, face to face interviews with a sample of these, and consultative workshops. The study recognised that the whole area, its industries and people needed to have a robust strategic context to help cope with the effects of rising sea levels and climate change. A wide range of issues was considered, including invisible infrastructure such as dredged channels for shipping and green infrastructure as well as conserving coastal and inter-tidal habitats, which are of exceptional quality in the Solent area.

Planning Achievement

• The study emphasised that growing existing businesses and establishing new ones is not easy. Past planning policies had not favoured industry on waterfront sites against proposals for example for residential development. Increased land values had made survival of shipbuilding and related uses in these locations precarious. By highlighting this the strategy has helped to reverse conventional thinking and to inform future policy development;
• Shortly after publication it was considered as part of the South East Regional Spatial Strategy examination in public, and a similar approach was recommended for the rest of the region. SEEDA, the local authorities, Partnership for Urban South Hampshire and business leaders have actively disseminated the results, and SEEDA has taken coastal land into ownership as a consequence;
• The strategy promotes innovation in, and support for, core marine clusters to ensure that they continue to flourish, safeguarding marine sites, tackling sea level rise, and setting all of these in the context of long term strategic planning for the area;
• The study was completed in just over a year. It demonstrates the importance of policymakers commissioning robust evidence and analysis, and the role that professional planners should play in providing this;
• This exceptional piece of work that has already informed regional, sub-regional and local policy and decision making.

Representatives from Adams Hendry Consulting receiving their award for Spatial Strategies from Ann Skippers, President of the RTPI, and awards host Justin Webb.

Key Participants

Adams Hendry Consulting Ltd, South East England Development Agency, Marina Projects Ltd, Atkins and Marine South East.