Three Harbours Strategy

The RSPB is delighted to inform you that the Three Harbours Strategy 2024-2028 is now published!

Fay Pisani, Project Development Manager – Three Harbours, said the following:

I’m enormously grateful to all of you for supporting the work of the partnership to get us to this milestone and I’m confident it will pave the way for accelerated action, greater cohesion and ultimately more wins for nature. Please feel free to share this with colleagues and wider stakeholders. It can be found on our webpage which is hosted by Solent Forum (gratitude to you).

Although this is a milestone we have been working towards for some time, this doesn’t meant we’ve been twiddling our thumbs. There’s plenty of movement on the high-level plan and I’ll give you a brief update on what’s been going on:

• Langstone Harbour Board have agreed to the development of a Masterplan that will draw together and enhance existing partner plans to restore the natural assets in the harbour. It will also catalyse a flagship project that redefines the identity of the harbour around its green and blue credentials.
• We are working with Southern Water to develop landscape recovery options for improved resilience against climate change and sea level rise across the Manhood Peninsula to inform future projects. This work will also refine a specific project that will improve connectivity and create wetland habitat around and between Pagham and Medmerry
• The Farming Group has been progressing discussions regarding a trial of the nutrient leaching tool which would support farmers in reducing nutrient emissions from their land. Farmers from the Manhood Farmers’ Cluster Group are interested in taking part in a trial of the scheme which is currently being reviewed nationally.
• As part of the CHaPRoN/Three Harbours Water Quality Group, we are developing a water quality monitoring programme focussed on nutrients. This is essential to understanding what is impacting our water quality and to inform interventions. It aims to standardise water quality data gathering so that all partners who collect data on water quality can align and the data becomes more comparable and provides a richer picture. Southern Water are hoping to support this with a research project that will contribute to the design of the programme.
• We have commissioned a baseline survey of seagrass at Medmerry after finding colonies had naturally established (11 years since the managed realignment). The survey was conducted a couple of weekends ago by Fathom Ecology and we are awaiting the report, but this will inform measures to protect and restore seagrass and may also help us to better understand the conditions under which it thrives.
• RSPB are investigating opportunities for the Beneficial use of Dredged Sediment in Langstone Harbour and hope to have a report in the coming months that will inform future projects to create saltmarsh friendly habitat.
• We will be supporting the project management of the delivery of the Downs to the Sea Ferry Pool Wetlands project at Pagham Harbour which will begin delivery in 2025.
• On the programme side, we have started to develop the Integrated Recovery Plan which will bring together all partner projects so we can all see in one view what all partners have planned. This will be mapped against themes of work and geographically, and will support greater cohesion across the partnership, prioritisation of activities, reduce duplication and should help us in matching funding to projects – basically making us more effective as a whole. I’m hoping to hold a workshop on this before the end of the year, so stay tuned.
• And finally, we are in the process of establishing an Executive Board to which the partnership would be accountable. We hope this board will be able to leverage greater traction and progress on the strategy. They will meet for the first time in the coming months.

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