It would be similar to wildlife-rich Pagham Harbour, a designated local nature reserve, just a few miles away, and the county maintains it would have a 'positive impact' for generations to come – according to West Sussex County Council.

But the authority's comments, made in response to a new Pagham to East Head coastal strategy, come with a warning about concerns over national funding mechanisms for coastal defence, which could cause problems over such a project.

In a letter to the Environment Agency, Cllr Deborah Urquhart, county cabinet member for the environment and economy, said the need to realign defences at Medmerry, Selsey, to a more stable position inland was becoming better understood by the community. Such a policy would result in a major new landscape feature in the form of a new harbour similar in nature to Pagham.

"But despite the engagement and visioning work done by the community over the years, including the Going Dutch conferences, it would appear the indicative alignments of the new defences are based around ensuring the cheapest and shortest new structures to achieve the highest cost-benefit ratio," said Cllr Urquhart.

A new harbour had the potential to have a very positive impact on the area for generations to come.

But for the residents and businesses of the area to adopt the dramatic changes to their landscape and community that now seemed necessary, it was essential they were involved in shaping a vision for how their area would look and could be used, and how such a feature would be integrated into their landscape and fit alongside their existing facilities and infrastructure.

"Although the panel of experts agreed with the need to realign the defence inland at Medmerry, many of the workshops expressed concern about the engineered structures being imposed on the landscape, and not working with the contours and existing features," she added.

Alongside other members of the community and geo-morphologists and engineers, the county council would be keen to offer its landscape and heritage expertise to ensure the design of the new feature took full account of the character of the Manhood Peninsula.

The county would also expect to be engaged to identify and design the most appropriate locations for new and relocated rights of way, to maximise the benefits to the community of new routes and, where feasible, ensuring access for all.


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