The barrier, bought by the Environment Agency, will be used primarily in the southern end of Bath Road, to prevent sea water from flooding houses.

Although mainly for Emsworth, it could be deployed wherever it is needed along the south coast in an emergency.

The barrier will be kept at a storage bay in Havant.

In March, the town suffered at the hands of a storm which caused havoc across the south coast, but thanks to the new barrier houses around the millpond will have a little more protection should it happen again.

The barrier can be set up within half-an-hour and withstand an enormous amount of pressure, as testing in the sea proved, when it held back the tide.

Specialist team leader of operations delivery for east Hampshire Steve Hale said: "It is great in the sense we can put up the flood barrier and it will stay there. It means our guys are not out filling up sandbags – they can put this up and leave it. It maximises the use of our workforce.

"The properties that were flooded before should be protected from further coastal flooding, but we cannot protect from fluvial flooding from behind.

"It can hold some pressure – it will not let any water past it."

The barriers are made of galvanised steel and fold flat for storage. When in use they form an angled barrier which is covered by metal panels and reinforced plastic membrane.

The barrier is not the only piece of new equipment in the town as the automatic penstock gates next to the sailing club adjust automatically according to the level of the tide, using telemetry.

The millpond is flushed out with sea water once a month to ensure the habitat inside it survives.

Mr Hale added: "Emsworth has been quite a high priority, because when we took over the millpond from the council there was no flood defence information at all.

"Emptying the millpond was all done on local knowledge, but now we have spent the money on the new telemetry equipment, we can see what is going on there.

"We have got a good idea when we are going to have problems down there."

Before the floods in March, the Environment Agency completely drained the millpond, which saved the water from rising as high as it could have done had it been full.

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