Local · Portsmouth
Suggested Portsmouth Action Plan
UK Stat Pack's own evidence-led analysis of what the data suggests could help — not Portsmouth City Council policy, a government commitment, or a funded programme unless 'Current status' says so.
Suggested Portsmouth Action Plan — this is UK Stat Pack's own evidence-led analysis of what the data suggests could help, not Portsmouth City Council policy, a government commitment, or anyone's funded programme unless "Current status" says so explicitly. Costs are order-of-magnitude estimates, not costed bids, and are labelled as such throughout. See each item's sources for the underlying evidence, and the Development Plan for what is actually official, funded or underway.
Every item below starts from a documented problem, cites the evidence for it, and proposes something specific — with costs given as order-of-magnitude estimates (never invented precision), who would realistically have to act, and what would tell us whether it worked. Some of this recovers and rebuilds a previous version of this plan that used to live on the inequality page; other items are new, drawn from the evidence gathered for Beyond the Headlines.
A Community Land Trust for island housing
Not proposed officiallyProblem
Portsmouth cannot expand outward — it is an island — so every new home competes with employment land, green space and flood defence. Ordinary market housing delivery alone has not kept pace with need, and short-term/holiday letting further inflates prices in an already-constrained market.
Evidence
The Portsmouth Local Plan 2024–2040 sets a 17,700-home target with essentially no fallback land beyond the sites named in the Development Plan. Portsmouth City Council's own Skills and Labour Market Strategy (March 2026) separately notes graduate retention pressure partly linked to cost of living and housing in the city.
Proposed intervention
A Community Land Trust (CLT) that acquires land and builds homes sold or rented permanently below market value — the land is never resold, so affordability is locked in for good, not just for one sale. Target: several hundred CLT homes on Portsea Island by the early 2030s.
Why it might work
CLTs are an established UK model (e.g. London CLT, St Clements) precisely for constrained urban land where conventional "affordable" percentages get eroded by viability negotiations. Because the land is permanently removed from the open market, affordability doesn't decay over time the way section 106 discounts sometimes do.
Trade-offs / risks
CLT delivery is typically slower and smaller-scale than conventional private development, and depends on finding a willing landowner (public or MOD land) rather than relying on the open market.
💷 Cost
Tens of millions in initial land acquisition and build costs, offset over time by below-market rents/shared-ownership receipts rather than being a pure grant cost — treat any total figure as a rough order of magnitude, not a costed bid.
💡 Funding route
Homes England grant funding; possible surplus MOD/Crown Estate land in the area; Portsmouth City Council land contribution.
⏱ Timescale
Medium-term (3–7 yrs)
🏛️ Responsible
Portsmouth City Council; Homes England; A newly-formed or partner CLT body; MOD (as a potential landowner)
Success measures
- •Number of CLT homes completed and let/sold below market value
- •Whether affordability is genuinely locked in at re-sale (not eroded over time)
Related official project:Tipner West & City Centre North (Development Plan) →
Sources (1)
A shared port and naval-base apprenticeship pipeline
Not proposed officiallyProblem
Portsmouth's naval base and port are major employers, but the local graduate/apprentice retention rate is low — Portsmouth City Council's own Skills and Labour Market Strategy (March 2026) puts graduate retention at roughly 19%, well below what the city's anchor employers would need to build a durable local skills pipeline.
Evidence
BAE Systems runs a genuine, if fluctuating in scale, apprenticeship and graduate programme at its Portsmouth Naval Base site. UTC Portsmouth exists specifically as an employer-partnered technical sixth form with BAE Systems, Royal Navy, QinetiQ, NATS and DSTL among its named partners. But there is no single shared, city-wide pipeline coordinating these separately-run schemes.
Proposed intervention
A formally coordinated apprenticeship hub linking QA Hospital, BAE Systems, the naval base, the port and Portsmouth City Council into one shared pipeline, deliberately targeted at wards with the highest youth unemployment rather than left to individual employer recruitment.
Why it might work
Employer-partnered technical education already works at small scale in Portsmouth (UTC Portsmouth's Ofsted results are strong); the constraint is scale and coordination, not a lack of any working model to build on.
Trade-offs / risks
Coordinating multiple large, independent employers (private sector, MOD, NHS, further/higher education) is a genuine governance challenge, not just a funding one.
💷 Cost
Set-up cost in the low millions; a large share of ongoing running cost would typically come from the Apprenticeship Levy the anchor employers already pay.
💡 Funding route
Apprenticeship Levy contributions from anchor employers; Department for Education T-Level/skills funding.
⏱ Timescale
Medium-term (3–7 yrs)
🏛️ Responsible
BAE Systems; Royal Navy / MOD; University of Portsmouth; City of Portsmouth College; Portsmouth City Council
Success measures
- •Apprenticeship starts per year across the coordinated pipeline
- •Graduate/apprentice retention rate in Portsmouth (tracked against the Council's ~19% baseline)
Sources (1)
Sustained, targeted literacy/numeracy tutoring in the highest-deprivation wards
Not proposed officiallyProblem
Portsmouth's most deprived wards (Charles Dickens, Paulsgrove and others) show persistent educational underachievement gaps that compound over a child's schooling.
Evidence
Portsmouth City Council's Public Health Needs Summary 2025 records Charles Dickens ward with the highest child poverty rate in the city (35.9% of children in relative low-income families) and Paulsgrove second-highest (27.5%).
Proposed intervention
Structured small-group literacy and numeracy tutoring, sustained over multiple years rather than a single-year programme, targeted specifically at the highest-deprivation wards.
Why it might work
The Education Endowment Foundation's own evidence base rates structured small-group tutoring among the higher-impact, evidence-backed interventions for closing a disadvantage gap — the case for it rests on that established evidence base, not a Portsmouth-specific study.
Trade-offs / risks
Evidence-based tutoring only works if sustained for years, not as a single-year pilot — a genuine risk is funding being time-limited while the gap it addresses is not.
💷 Cost
Estimated in the low millions per year if run at meaningful scale across the highest-deprivation wards — a genuine ongoing cost, not a one-off.
💡 Funding route
Pupil Premium grant; National Tutoring Programme; Education Endowment Foundation partnership funding.
⏱ Timescale
Medium-term (3–7 yrs)
🏛️ Responsible
Department for Education; Portsmouth schools/multi-academy trusts; Portsmouth City Council (as local authority)
Success measures
- •KS4 disadvantage attainment gap in the targeted wards, tracked over multiple years
Sources (2)
A formally designated QA Hospital–University of Portsmouth health innovation zone
Not proposed officiallyProblem
Portsmouth has two genuine anchor institutions for health research — Queen Alexandra Hospital and the University of Portsmouth — but no formal structure to commercialise research locally, contributing to the city's low graduate-retention rate.
Evidence
The University of Portsmouth has delivered 100+ Knowledge Transfer Partnerships over two decades (£9.2m in grants, £4.9m in matched business funding) and has produced real spin-outs (RevoNA Bio; Spirogen, sold to AstraZeneca in 2013). But the university's own incubator space (formerly including Portsmouth Technopole, sold to The Trafalgar Group in May 2025 and rebranded Ocean House) has historically lacked follow-on space for companies that outgrow early-stage premises.
Proposed intervention
A formally designated health innovation zone co-locating QAH clinical research, University of Portsmouth academic research, and scale-up commercial space for health-tech spin-outs — explicitly including the follow-on/scale-up space the university's own documentation says is currently missing.
Why it might work
The underlying research relationship already works (KTPs, real spin-outs) — the gap is specifically the follow-on commercial space that lets a growing company stay in Portsmouth rather than relocate to Southampton Science Park or London.
Trade-offs / risks
Portsmouth competes directly with Southampton Science Park and London for exactly this kind of scale-up tenant — space alone does not guarantee retention without a genuinely competitive offer.
💷 Cost
A dedicated cluster facility is typically a mid-single-digit-million capital cost; treat as an order of magnitude pending an actual costed proposal.
💡 Funding route
Innovate UK; NHS innovation funding; University of Portsmouth commercial development budget; Solent Freeport innovation incentives.
⏱ Timescale
Medium-term (3–7 yrs)
🏛️ Responsible
University of Portsmouth; NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight / Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust; Innovate UK
Success measures
- •Number of health-tech spin-outs remaining and scaling within Portsmouth (not just formed here)
- •Follow-on commercial space actually delivered
A public, dated delivery timetable for the remaining worst Portsmouth/Langstone sewage outfalls
UnderwayProblem
Southern Water's Three Harbours Partnership is a genuine £170m investment, but residents have no published, site-by-site schedule for the specific outfalls with the worst spill records — so progress cannot easily be checked against a promise.
Evidence
Portsmouth Harbour recorded 124 storm-overflow spills totalling 234 hours in the most recent EDM reporting year (Rivers Trust "Top of the Poops", aggregating Environment Agency data); Southsea East remains classified "Poor" for bathing water by the Environment Agency.
Proposed intervention
A published, dated, site-level delivery plan for the remaining worst outfalls — modelled on the Stanley Road, Stamshaw bottleneck, which has reportedly already been fixed under this same programme.
Why it might work
The programme has already delivered at least one concrete, named fix — the ask here is transparency and pace, not a new mechanism.
Trade-offs / risks
None significant — this is a transparency ask on an existing programme rather than a new intervention with its own trade-offs.
💷 Cost
No new cost — this is a transparency/reporting ask on an already-funded (£170m) programme, not a new spending request.
💡 Funding route
Already funded — Southern Water's existing Three Harbours Partnership / Clean Rivers and Seas Plan.
⏱ Timescale
Short-term (1–3 yrs)
🏛️ Responsible
Southern Water; Environment Agency; Ofwat
Success measures
- •A published site-by-site timetable existing at all
- •Spill count/hours falling at the named worst outfalls year-on-year
Sources (2)
- Southern Water — Portsmouth Harbour £170m storm overflow scheme — 2024–2026
- Top of the Poops (Rivers Trust) — Portsmouth Harbour — 2025 data year
A visible local campaign on the registered waste-carrier database, alongside enforcement
Not proposed officiallyProblem
Portsmouth fly-tipping incidents rose from 751 to 1,092 in a single year, while only 17 Fixed Penalty Notices were issued over the same period — a large gap between incidents and enforcement capacity.
Evidence
Government-commissioned research (NatCen, for Defra) found fewer than 3 in 10 people nationally know the registered waste-carrier database exists, and only 11% know fly-tipping can lead to a criminal conviction.
Proposed intervention
A local, visible awareness campaign on the waste-carrier register — letting residents check in seconds whether whoever they're paying to take waste away is legally allowed to — run alongside (not instead of) continued enforcement and the incoming 2027 licensing reform.
Why it might work
This targets a documented awareness gap directly, at very low cost, rather than relying solely on an enforcement capacity that current numbers show is already stretched thin.
Trade-offs / risks
Awareness campaigns alone will not stop determined rogue commercial operators — this is a complement to enforcement and the 2027 licensing reform, not a replacement for either.
💷 Cost
Low — primarily a communications/campaign cost, not new infrastructure.
💡 Funding route
Portsmouth City Council communications budget; potential Defra local-authority engagement funding.
⏱ Timescale
Short-term (1–3 yrs)
🏛️ Responsible
Portsmouth City Council; Environment Agency
Success measures
- •Awareness of the waste-carrier register among residents (survey-based)
- •Fly-tipping incident count trend
Sources (1)
Insist Tipner West's marine employment space is built alongside the housing, not after it
Under discussionProblem
Portsmouth's island geography means there is no fallback development land beyond the sites already in the Local Plan — if Tipner West delivers homes but the marine employment floorspace slips or shrinks, the city loses one of its few remaining chances to grow permanent, high-wage jobs on the island.
Evidence
The Portsmouth Local Plan allocates Tipner West for up to 1,000 homes plus 58,000 sqm of marine employment space — but housing and commercial floorspace on mixed-use sites nationally do not always deliver in the proportions originally allocated once a scheme reaches viability negotiations.
Proposed intervention
Portsmouth City Council and the Local Plan examination process should treat the marine employment floorspace as a delivery condition tied to the housing phases, not something that can be quietly reduced later for viability reasons.
Why it might work
This is a planning-conditions ask, not a new funding request — it uses a lever the council already has (planning obligations) rather than asking for new money.
Trade-offs / risks
Tying housing delivery to commercial floorspace conditions can slow down urgently-needed housing if a developer argues the employment space is not viable — a genuine trade-off between speed of housing delivery and the jobs objective.
💷 Cost
No direct public cost — this is a planning-policy/conditions ask, not a spending proposal.
💡 Funding route
N/A — planning conditions, not a funding ask.
⏱ Timescale
Short-term (1–3 yrs)
🏛️ Responsible
Portsmouth City Council (planning); Homes England; The Tipner West developer(s)
Success measures
- •Marine employment floorspace actually delivered vs the 58,000 sqm allocation, tracked phase by phase
Related official project:Tipner West (Development Plan) →
Sources (1)
Complete a signposted cycle circuit of Portsea Island
Not proposed officiallyProblem
Portsmouth has several genuinely good cycling infrastructure fragments (Hilsea Lines, the Southsea Coastal Scheme's promenade diversions) but they do not currently connect into one continuous, safe route.
Evidence
The Development Plan's own "what's still missing" assessment for Green Infrastructure names the Hilsea Lido–Eastney–Southsea Castle seafront cycle routing as incomplete and unsafe at several junctions.
Proposed intervention
A fully signposted cycle circuit of Portsea Island (roughly 12km) connecting Hilsea Lines, Eastern Road, Eastney, the Southsea seafront, Old Portsmouth and Tipner, resolving the specific dangerous junctions rather than treating each green-space project's cycle path as a standalone amenity.
Why it might work
Most of the individual segments already exist or are being built as part of other funded schemes (Hilsea Lines restoration, Southsea Coastal Scheme) — the missing piece is junction treatment and continuity, not building a route from scratch.
Trade-offs / risks
Junction redesigns that favour cyclists can reduce motor-vehicle capacity at pinch points on an island with only one main road in and out — a real trade-off given Portsmouth's existing traffic congestion.
💷 Cost
Mid-single-digit millions, primarily for junction upgrades, surfacing and wayfinding rather than new route construction.
💡 Funding route
Active Travel England; Solent Transport capital programme; developer contributions from Tipner West and City Centre North.
⏱ Timescale
Medium-term (3–7 yrs)
🏛️ Responsible
Portsmouth City Council (highways); Active Travel England
Success measures
- •Number of dangerous junctions resolved
- •Cycle trip counts on the connected route
Related official project:Green Infrastructure Investment (Development Plan) →
Sources (1)
Related content
Development Plan →
What is actually official, funded or underway — kept deliberately separate from the suggestions above.
Beyond the Headlines →
The root-cause evidence several of these action items are drawn from.
UK national action plan →
The wider UK-level structural reforms this Portsmouth-specific plan sits alongside.