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
Foulness Island an Act of Parliament was obtained in 1852. This authorised the construction of a wall, running from Wakering Stairs to beyond Foulness Point. A small amount of work was carried out on another part of the scheme near Bradwell-on-Sea, but the company was wound up in 1868. Lack of finance and opposition from landowners contributed to its failure. Another scheme was proposed by William Napier and William Hope (VC) in January 1862, in response to requests from the Metropolitan Board for imaginative ways to generate a profit from the large quantities of sewage which had been conveyed away from London