Isle of Portland
The Isle of Portland is a tied island, 6 kilometres (4 mi) long by 2.7 kilometres (1.7 mi) wide, in the English Channel.[2] The southern tip, Portland Bill, lies 8 kilometres (5 mi) south of the resort of Weymouth, forming the southernmost point of the county of Dorset, England. A barrier beach called Chesil Beach joins Portland with mainland England. The A354 road passes down the Portland end of the beach and then over the Fleet Lagoon by bridge to the mainland. The population of Portland is 13,417.[1]
Portland is a central part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site on the Dorset and east Devon coast, important for its geology and landforms. Portland stone, a limestone famous for its use in British and world architecture, including St Paul's Cathedral and the United Nations Headquarters, continues to be quarried here.
Portland Harbour, in between Portland and Weymouth, is one of the largest man-made harbours in the world. The harbour was made by the building of stone breakwaters between 1848 and 1905. From its inception it was a Royal Navy base, and played prominent roles during the First and Second World Wars; ships of the Royal Navy and NATO countries worked up and exercised in its waters until 1995. The harbour is now a civilian port and popular recreation area, and was used for the 2012 Olympic Games.
The name Portland is used for one of the British Sea Areas, and has been exported as the name of North American and Australian towns.
Governance[edit]
Since the 2019 structural changes to local government, Portland is in the Dorset unitary authority, administered by Dorset Council.[34] The whole island forms Portland ward which is one of the 52 wards and elects three members to the council.[35]
Portland is an ancient royal manor, and until the 19th century remained a separate liberty within Dorset for administration purposes. It was then an urban district from 1894 to 1974. The borough of Weymouth and Portland formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 by merger of Portland urban district with the borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis. In 2020, the borough of Weymouth and Portland was abolished when Dorset moved to a unitary authority structure of local government.[36]
Weymouth, Portland and the Purbeck district are in the South Dorset parliamentary constituency, created in 1885. The constituency elects one Member of Parliament; the current MP is Richard Drax (Conservative).[37]
Weymouth and Portland have been twinned with the town of Holzwickede in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany since 1986,[38] and the French town of Louviers, in the department of Eure in Normandy, since 1959.[39] The borough and nearby Chickerell have been a Fairtrade Zone since 2007.[40]
Education[edit]
St George's Community Primary School is located in Easton.[79] The only other school on Portland is the Atlantic Academy, an all-through school for pupils aged 3 to 19 based at two different sites.[80] Formerly known as the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy, it formed in 2012 by merging four primary schools and one secondary school.[81]
Some students commute to Weymouth or Dorchester to study A-Levels, or to attend other secondary schools nearby. Weymouth College in Melcombe Regis is the nearest further education college, which has around 7,500 students from south west England and overseas,[82] about 1500 studying A-Level courses.[83]
Informational notes
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