Exploring the Bournemouth Coast Path

The New Forest National Park Authority takes up its full duties on 1 April 2006.

Lindsay Cornish, the Chief Executive, said: “From 1 April the National Park Authority becomes the local planning authority within the Park boundary. We will give grants for innovative projects from our Sustainable Development Fund and work with partners on conservation, recreation and information projects. And we will provide a unified voice to champion the Park at all levels.”

The new boundary restores some land to the New Forest including Pennington Marshes and its coast path. So the first leg of the Solent Way is now within the New Forest

The National Park Authority’s interim headquarters is at South Efford House near Lymington.

See Exploring the Bournemouth Coast Path: Walk 7 Milford-on-Sea to Lymington.

Environment Minister Elliot Morley chose Studland Bay as the most appropriate place to launch the government’s new guidance on shoreline management plans.

The Dorset Coast Path runs along the beach where the National Trust has already begun to abandon sea defences. NT Head of Sustainability Rob Jarman warned that the beach was going to change.

He added: “Every storm brings new changes to the beach which is gradually moving further north towards Shell Bay. There’s a limit to what can be done. It’s a waste of money to try and keep things as they are.”

The Trust has twice moved Studland’s beach huts and plans already exist to move the cafe and visitors’ centre as they will be flooded within twenty years.

Mr Morley acknowledged the natural resistance that people feel towards change, but emphasised that coastlines are dynamic and that it’s not a realistic option to preserve the whole coast exactly as it is indefinitely.

Several clifftop gardens are opening this summer as part of the National Gardens Scheme. One belongs to a house in Cassel Avenue where the garden is half an acre on the side of Branksome Dene Chine. Nearby, across the Alum Chine suspension bridge and up a tempting short cut footpath, is a Milner Road garden which has mature holly, rhododendron hedges and a driftwood conservatory. In Boscombe the 1872 garden of Lord Portman’s seaside house, now Wentworth College, has been restored ready for two open days. Above Avon Beach at Mudeford is the garden of Windy Willums which has featured in Gardners’ World magazine. Most gardens are serving teas.

The garden openings are listed in the 2006 edition of The Yellow Book (£7.99) and on www.ngs.org.uk

The continuing row about the future of the IMAX cinema building on Bournemouth seafront will be featured on BBC1’s Inside Out programme to be shown in the South on Monday 6 March. A recent Channel 4 programme branded the building as one of the ugliest in Britain. Meanwhile the nearby pier is to undergo a £1m makeover over the next five years by Openwide International Ltd which has a 25 year lease on the kiosks, theatre and cafe.