Client: Hampshire County Council

Lepe is a coastal country park, located within the New Forest National Park and it an important recreational and education resource. The country park faces a number of challenges including rising sea levels, vulnerable to damage from storm and tidal surges, increasing visitor numbers and built visitor facilities which are reaching the end of their design life. Parts of the country park are designated as a Local Nature Reserve and National Nature Reserve, a Ramsar site, a SSSI, SPA and SAC.

Working with Hampshire County Council we prepared a vision, development strategy and business plan for the country park, which included a site assessment, market review, consultation exercise (with a range of stakeholders including the New Forest National Park, offices from within the Council, the friends and landowners), a programme of face-to-face and online research amongst different visitors (community, day visitors and overnight tourists), options appraisal, concept development and business appraisal of the preferred option. Our work supported a successful funding application which lead to the development of a climate resilient hub building accommodating different uses and improvements to the existing visitor infrastructure (play, interpretation, trails and car parking).

Latterly working with the architectural team we advised on design / operational considerations for a community engagement strategy to develop a new visitor hub.

Front image kindly supplied by Hampshire County Council

How can we help?
If you have any questions about introducing developing a country park or other recreation or nature site or would like to discuss our work please don’t hesitate to call Richard Linington on 023 9248 1999 or email richard@pslplan.co.uk