Bahrain has been urged to come up with a new coastal development policy to preserve its shoreline and manage development.

That was the message of Bahrain Society of Engineers (BSE) president Masoud Ebrahim Hermi on the sidelines of a workshop on sustainable coastal development in the Gulf yesterday (May 11), said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

The workshop, which was held at the BSE in Juffair under the patronage of Works, Municipalities and Urban Planning Affairs Minister Essam Khalaf, highlighted a lack of public access to beaches.

Hermi pointed out that coastal projects often relied on different consultants and said a unified approach was needed.

"The aim is to form and share the proper approach for dealing with coastal projects because you have too many consultants working in Bahrain and each one has his own experiences, as well as experts coming in from outside the region, so it is not unified," he said.

Hermi said other countries in the region, such as Qatar, had a complete coastal plan that encompassed all shoreline developments.

"Normal citizens have a requirement to have access to the sea and that access has to be clean, planned, well organised and accessible to everyone," said Hermi.

"I think this workshop is giving the basic know-how for concerned parties, who include planners, officials at the municipalities in Bahrain and the GCC, professional consultants, academics and a few professors from universities.

"It is a good gathering to exchange expertise and learn from each other." - TradeArabia News Service