We welcomed a special guest at the Harbour last week as my colleague the Secretary of State for the Environment, Thérèse Coffey, joined my team, and the Harbour Conservancy, for a catchup on some really exciting work underway to save part of our coast.

Whilst they might not seem like anything extraordinary from a distance, saltmarshes play a hugely important role for the wildlife in our waters: acting as a natural barrier during periods of flooding, providing protective nurseries to nearby fish, and even a valuable source of carbon storage under their layers of thick mud. Despite this, they’ve unfortunately seen a real decline across much of the last century, with our own at Chichester Harbour having been depleted by as much as 58% since 1946.

It’s a hugely concerning trend and, for that reason, I was really pleased to discover more about some of the ambitious work we have already got underway to turn the tide. The Saltmarsh Restoration Trial is taking place as part of a £5 million investment to restore and reconnect our coastal habitats across the Solent, using repurposed sediment from the harbour to ‘rebuild’ some of the coastline we’ve lost. Chichester is leading the way on this, and the hope is ultimately that it can pave the way for other programmes of its kind to be rolled out across the country. It’s potentially revolutionary, and I’ll be touching base with the Harbour team regularly to see how things progress on this important coastal project.

Away from the water, I’m pleased to share some fantastic funding news from another one of our brilliant community initiatives. The Chichester Shed is a place for people across the community to come together, try their hand at something new like woodwork, metalwork, electronics whilst meeting some new people along the way. I've seen first-hand what a difference 'Shed' initiatives can make to people's wellbeing - particularly for young people and older isolated people – and, thanks to the more than £400,000 in funding they’ve been awarded through the Government’s Youth Investment Fund, they’ll soon have a bigger, better, bespoke space to work out of.

It's amazing news from another ‘hidden gem’ in our community, and I can’t wait to see how it’ll grow over the coming months and years. Congratulations again to all of the Shed team and the Chichester Community Development Trust for making this happen!