CONFRONTING COASTAL COMMUNITIES’ CHALLENGES

A new network is bringing together academics from coastal locations around the UK to tackle challenges inherent to being by the sea.

Coastal erosion, sea-level rise, infrastructure difficulties, port-related issues and social deprivation are all common challenges in communities on the coast.

The iPACT (Infrastructure for Port Cities and Coastal Towns) network has been set up to address these issues, bringing together a multidisciplinary academic community. The group is focusing on three case study locations: Southampton, Morecambe and North Norfolk.

William Powrie, Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Southampton, who leads iPACT, said: “The three sites encapsulate many problems of coastal areas, from eroding coastlines, to social deprivation, to loss of livelihoods, to port-related issues, to tourism opportunities.

“Coastal towns and cities get a raw deal. Even with a busy bustling port, such as Southampton, there is a question as to how much it really benefits the local community. Goods come in and need to be distributed, but how do we provide these transport links without severing communities?

“In places like Morecambe, which used to be a thriving holiday town, a lot of guest accommodation is now used as temporary housing, resulting in a transient population that does not have a huge amount of money to spend. On the other hand, there is a huge regeneration opportunity in the Eden Project Morecambe – how do we maximise the benefit of this for the local community? North Norfolk has an ageing population, and the area faces the threat of coastal erosion – how do some communities decide that they may need to relocate inland, and how do we provide the infrastructure to enable this?”

Rethinking infrastructure

iPACT is focusing on infrastructure to tackle these challenges.

“There are benefits to being on the coast, but there are problems too,” said William. “The layout of coastal towns and cities is often one. For example, in the Solent, everything is spread out like a ribbon, rather than the conventional radial set-up of a city such as Birmingham or London. There can also be disbenefits of ports. Southampton, for example, is a waterfront city with no public waterfront. And the transport links to ports cause problems, cutting off communities.

“So, infrastructure is what we’re interested in. How can it work for people to help give them a better deal? It must be sustainable and low carbon, resilient to the impacts of climate change, and contribute to levelling up.”

The network started with a series of community consultations to understand how the communities feel.

“One of the interesting things to come out of these consultations is that there is a lot of pride in the local communities,” explained William. “We thought, for example, that Morecambe could benefit from better links to Lancaster, but, in fact, the community told us they want their own identity in Morecambe.” iPACT was established in 2022 and is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences

A series of pilot studies focusing on themes from the consultations and a series of development sandpits – one in each of the three case study locations – will begin in April 2023 and run for 10 months.

iPACT was established in 2022 and is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The network brings together Investigators from the University of Southampton, the University of Strathclyde, Queen’s University Belfast, Lancaster University, the University of East Anglia, and the University of Brighton, and researchers from these universities and elsewhere. Southampton’s involvement includes representatives from the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute, Arts and Humanities, and Engineering.

Find out more futuretowns.soton.ac.uk/ipact/