Foulness Island passing of the Ministry of Defence Act 1946 and the subsequent rationalisation of five agencies in 1971, ownership of the island passed from the War Office to the Ministry of Defence. In 2003, a contract to manage the testing of munitions was awarded to the defence contractors QinetiQ, and they also control access to the island. In the 1850s, the South Essex Estuary and Reclamation Company proposed a grand scheme to reclaim around of land on the Essex coast, which would have included most of Foulness Sands and Maplin Sands. The civil engineer Sir John Rennie produced the plans, and
River Foulness the area. The area surrounding the river is almost totally agricultural. There are very few Public Rights of Way in the river valley. It is not crossed by many roads and there are few major settlements; therefore, leisure activity is limited mainly to angling. River Foulness The River Foulness is a river in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Its name is derived from Old English "fūle[n] ēa", meaning “dirty water”. Maintenance responsibilities for the river transferred from the Environment Agency to the Market Weighton Drainage Board on 1 October 2011. Market Weighton Drainage Board subsequently amalgamated with the Lower