The Solent Forum
Working in partnership for the future
The Solent, like many other coastal areas around the UK, has many human demands placed upon it. For centuries people have lived by the Solent, used its natural resources for trade and recreational pursuits and located their businesses adjacent to its shores.
The dominant forces which have influenced the Solent over the last century are the growth of urban settlement on the coastal plain with its associated land development and reclamation for commerce, defence and recreation. Such pressures on the coastal plain are likely to continue into the future and will be exacerbated by population increases, sea level rise and changing weather patterns. Currently 1.5 million people live around the Solent.
The Hampshire coast includes parts of the districts of Eastleigh, Fareham, Gosport, Havant, New Forest, Test Valley and Winchester, Hampshire County Council has coastal landholdings. Its two main urban centres are the Unitary Authority cities of Portsmouth and Southampton. These cities, together with adjacent settlements form an almost continuous spread of loose knit suburban development along the Solent's 370km coastline.
More information on housing, the economy and transport for South Hampshire is available from the Partnership for South Hampshire (PfSH).
The Island’s land surface is 380 km2 with 120 km of coastline broadly divided into 60 km of Solent coast, from The Needles to Culver via the Medina Estuary, and 60 km of Channel coast from The Needles to Culver via St. Catherine’s Point. The intertidal zone that encompasses the Island covers approximately 13 km²; a large proportion is owned and managed by the Isle of Wight Council, with some on long leasehold from the Crown Estate35. Approximately 30% of the shoreline is protected by coastal defences36, predominantly around the larger coastal settlements in the eastern half of the Island.
The Isle of Wight covers an area of 147 square miles, with a coastline that runs for 57 miles. The Island is separated from the mainland but is connected to the ports of Lymington, Southampton and Portsmouth by passenger and vehicle ferries. The overriding character of the Island is rural but over 60% of the 143,7001 residents live within the main towns of Newport, Cowes, East Cowes, Ryde, Sandown and Shanklin. Newport is the County Town of the Island and is the main employment centre, with the majority of public sector employers based there.
The Island population is significantly older than the national average, and this demographic trend line is steepening. Annually, approximately 1,000 children are born on the Island, 2,000 people die, 5,000 arrive through local immigration (predominantly retirees from the central south of England) and 4,000 move away (mainly school leavers). The net annual increase in population is small, averaging just 200 over the decade leading up to the last census. ONS projections show the Island population continuing to grow at approximately 2% each year though this has significantly slowed during and post-Covid.
There are approximately 60,000 jobs on the Island, 30,000 full-time, 20,000 part-time, and 10,000 self-employed. These are mainly taken up by care, education, retail and ‘home service’ sectors, but there are also significant strengths in tourism and hospitality, creative and cultural enterprise, and in electronics and engineering (the latter having established a ‘tech’ cluster in the Medina Valley).
More information on the Island can be found in its Island planning documents and in the Local Nature Recovery Strategy.
