Hampshire county council’s £3m The Lookout visitor centre has opened. It was designed to offer unsurpassed views from Lepe Country Park to the Solent, as well as to keep an eye on the future.

Created by the authority’s in-house property services team, the building replaces a previous café and visitor centre and also includes a restaurant, staff offices and support facilities. Additionally, it is positioned 2.5m above the beach to cope with the highest predicted water levels 100 years from now.

The centre, near Exbury, tells the story of the Solent from its post-glacial origins to the embarkation of troops for D-Day in 1944 and is one of the few points in the New Forest National Park that has easy access to the coastline.

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