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
Bømlo (island) Bømlo (island) Bømlo (or Bømmeløy) is an island in Hordaland county, Norway. At , it is the largest island in the island municipality Bømlo lying just off the western coast of Norway. The island sits at the northern entrance to the vast Hardangerfjorden, west of the Stokksundet strait, south of the Selbjørnsfjorden, and east of the North Sea. In the 1800s, the Kulleseid Canal was built across a small isthmus in the central part of the island, giving a shortcut from the eastern side of the island to the western side of the island. The large island of Stord lies