The short answer: the very dry summer of 2025 helped bring total spill hours across the Solent back down to their lowest level since 2020 - but a closer, site-by-site look shows that not every combined sewer overflow (CSO*) is actually improving. At our August Council meeting, SPS committee member Duncan Purdie presented an updated … Continue reading CSO sewage discharges into the Solent: how do 2022 and 2025 compare?
This incident draws attention to three distinct areas of concern for Solent Protection Society: Environmental Impacts of PollutionClimate Change AdaptationMaritime Safety Environmental Impacts of Pollution The volunteer trustees of the Solent Protection Society are all too familiar with the environmental damage caused by sewage discharges from Southern Water’s combined sewer overflows. Yet, at the eastern … Continue reading Baltic Klipper container spill raises wider concerns
The Solent coastline is one of the most environmentally sensitive and socially diverse areas in southern England. It is home to internationally designated habitats, long-established communities, and a coastline that supports recreation, industry and wildlife in close proximity. Any major development therefore brings both opportunities and responsibilities. Solent Protection Society volunteers are currently monitoring two … Continue reading Southampton / New Forest Waterside development proposals
How does Fawley fit into the UK Government Strategy for Net Zero? First, it may be helpful to recap the three strategic decarbonisation options being considered by the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is the short-term solution, letting existing industrial processes keep running while trapping the … Continue reading The Fawley EDF Green Hydrogen proposal
Development at Dibden Bay As an organisation that first campaigned actively against development of Dibden Bay around 20 years ago, Solent Protection Society’s current position is that some level of development of the site in today's economic climate is now inevitable. We are encouraged to see that the footprint of the proposed development closely follows … Continue reading Solent Gateway 2
How did Solent area Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) do in 2024? The short answer is better than the dreadful year of 2023, but most of this reduction was significantly due to less rainfall in 2024.So, some slight improvement but still way above 2022 and very significantly above the government’s target. Background The Solent Protection Society … Continue reading CSO sewage discharges into the Solent
Earlier this year the leader of the Solent Protection Society’s Pollution Group, Richard Brown, wrote to his MP, Dr Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East), to express the Society's concern and to ask what action the government was taking on Combined Sewer Overflows, given the high concentration of direct and indirect spills into the Solent … Continue reading SPS parliamentary correspondence on CSO sewage spills into the Solent
I wrote an article for our 2024/2025 newsletter about the two FCERM (Flood and Coastal Erosion Management) Coastal strategies in the Western Solent. Since publication, the Draft Adaption Pathways have been released to the public and public exhibitions held to explain them to the public, see the further reading section below for detail. There has … Continue reading Hurst Spit to Lymington Strategy
Six years ago, the Solent Protection Society Council agreed on four main focus areas for which we should keep a watching brief; Pollution, Planning, Climate Change Adaptation and Marine Science. As we move into 2025, the set remain valid and while Southern Water continues to keep us occupied on Pollution and Planning, during 2024 the … Continue reading Challenges facing the Solent in 2025
We would like to hope that in 2025 we might have some positive news from the Solent regions' water companies, but as 2024 draws to a close, this is starting to look unlikely. The Society made a conscious decision in 2024 to stand back and just keep a monitoring brief on the perpetual problem of … Continue reading The challenges facing the Solent’s water companies
