The Hurst Spit to Lymington Strategy sets out long-term flood defence plans for the next 100 years, but key elements raise serious concerns about the future of Lymington and its coastline.
One of the main proposals is to allow Hurst Spit to “rollback” and breach, which would remove the natural barrier protecting Lymington from south-westerly storms. Additionally, the “Managed Realignment” strategy would create artificial breaches in the sea wall at Jetty-Butts and Oxey-Pennington, flooding grazing land to form a new saltmarsh. However, this would also leave Lymington and the surrounding area far more exposed to wave action and coastal erosion.
An alternative “Hold the Line” approach—reinforcing existing defences—has been estimated to cost only a third of the proposed realignment, yet this option has not been prioritised. If the current “rollback” plan goes ahead, the impact on Lymington’s community, local businesses and environment will be severe.
We encourage everyone to review the proposals by visiting www.hurstspit2lymington.co.uk and to share feedback with the Environment Agency at HurstSpit2Lymington@environment-agency.gov.uk
You may also like to join our Facebook group for more updates – Save Lymington and Keyhaven – SLAK | Facebook
Lymington River
Lymington and Berthon Marina are located in the Lymington West region; however, it is the Jetty-Butts and Oxey-Pennington area strategy that gives us significant concern. The ‘Rollback’ and breach of Hurst Spit will allow south westerly wave action to roll directly towards Lymington during gales, and Lymington is currently protected from this by the orange area, Jetty-Butts & Oxey Pennington, which sticks out into the Solent.
Managed Realignment
The proposed ‘Managed Realignment with Saltmarsh Creation’ with artificial breaches in the sea wall (see below diagram), will allow the grazing land behind to flood, with a new sea wall much further inland, creating a new inter-tidal marsh for wading birds displaced from the existing mudflats which will rapidly disappear once Hurst Spit breaches.
With Hurst Spit permanently breached, and with the sea wall at Jetty-Butts and Oxey-Pennington also breached, this will leave Lymington badly exposed to strong south westerly winds and winter storms. We fear that this has not been taken into consideration and would cause huge harm to Lymington and the surrounding area. Our strong recommendation would be to ‘Hold the Line’ of the current sea wall and build the embankments up over time in keeping with increases in sea levels. The Environment Agency reports that ‘Hold the Line’ is also 1/3 of the cost of the ‘Managed Realignment with Saltmarsh Creation’.
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