Southsea Coastal Scheme deliver workshop to show benefits of sea defences to New Horizons Primary School

Pupils from New Horizons Primary School have been learning about the effects and benefits of sea defences, following a visit from the Southsea Coastal Scheme who are leading on the coastal defences project to protect businesses and homes from flooding.

Year 5 and 6 pupils at the school have been introduced to the UK’s largest local authority-led coastal defence project, worth more than £180m, and the positive impact it will have on more than 10,000 homes across the city.

The pupils received a visual demonstration of the impact different sea defences can have through the use of a wave tank, helping a complicated and engineering-heavy project to be simplified for young minds to understand.  

Sophie Carter, who delivered the session and works for the contractor delivering on the Southsea Coastal Scheme, said it’s important to raise awareness about what is happening along the seafront.

She said: “We take our wave tank into schools to raise awareness about this coastal defence project, whilst also explaining to the children what we're doing to protect the environment and sea life within our work.

“Our visit is also an opportunity to touch on climate change and help the children understand the link between building new sea defences and the reasons why we're there; sea levels are rising, there are bigger risks of storms which can lead to flooding. We use the wave tank as a visual way of showing them how the different sea defences will work when they're built, and why we're using different types of sea defences in different parts of Southsea seafront.”

The team who delivers these sessions to schools across Portsmouth also believes this workshop is a positive way to broaden the minds of pupils to explore different types of careers available that they may have not otherwise considered.

Rena, a Senior Communications Officer at Portsmouth City Council who helps promote this project, said: “We have had a really good response from schools across the city who have been contacting us for this demonstration. At the beginning of this project, we used to reach out to many organisations to go and talk to them, and now they come to us, so it is lovely to see that we have become popular with these kinds of events which inspire young people.”

Find out more about the Southsea Coastal Scheme project at southseacoastalscheme.org.uk