The revised proposals for Natural England’s coast path, recently renamed "The King Charles III England  Coast Path",  next to the MGL seawall.  The revised proposal is to construct a wooden boardwalk with wooden railings to both sides immediately adjacent to but not in contact with our seawall.   The main features can be seen on these diagrams:

People will have their own reactions to the plan but there is one area of immediate concern for us.  The closest point of the boardwalk will be only 300mm (1ft) away from the face of our seawall, which would render future maintenance works to our seawall impossible without removal of the boardwalk.  This seems a far from satisfactory situation and the CoM has begun a series of actions to respond lead by Martin Price, our Director responsible for infrastructure (Martin is an engineer himself, so well placed to act for us).  Initially he has written to the Inspector for the NE Coast Path Scheme to express our concerns.  The difficulty of accessing our sea wall if the new structure were to be put in place does mean that it is important that we assess and undertake any necessary action on the parts that we are responsible for. 

To that end, Martin has taken measurements which, along with the topographical survey information we obtained from Havant Borough Council, would provide all the information needed to provide a base for producing engineering drawings of any scheme proposals.  Once this is available, MGL will have to seek approval from HBC planning, Chichester Harbour Conservancy, the Marine Management Organisation and possibly Natural England. This will all take time but we will continue to update residents.

This final figure shows the proposed works at the existing culvert, so not directly impacting on our seawall. 

Page last updated: Sunday February 18, 2024