Monday 27 October 2025.

(If you've come here via the many broken links* welcome! )

TheSolentMetropolitan was founded by me, Rob Davis.

Borne out of a love for both Solent cities, Southampton and Portsmouth - where I have roots in both and nearby areas: growing up, working, living studying and recreation.

This one-off project is a re-incarnation of my previous community media life: I presented and produced speech radio shows on volunteering and community across the Solent on Unity 101.1 FM in Southampton, Skyline 102.5 FM Hedge End and 93.7 Express FM in Portsmouth.  

I've also worked in building online digital experiences and collaboration platforms, in the form of websites with Drupal, most recently for the United Nations and also at region's Universities, Natural History Museum, social purpose campaigns (End Child Food Poverty, TheElders), Government websites, public sector and charities: Kew, Anthony Nolan, etc. 

The re-incarnation takes the essence of that previous life into where we are today with digital media, TheSolentMetropolitan's main drive is to curate events, surface them, create related spaces for them and secondly as a think tank to drive grand ideas and public infrastructure in the Solent, particularly transport and hubs that uplift the great things going on. These may a while coming, to TheSolentMetropolitan is create a virtual platform to connection people, ideas, events across the Solent.

If you look online, go on Instagram etc, there are quite a few efforts in documenting the region - so are we yet another one?  Well, there's room for several. Extending the outline above, read more about our purpose and here . We're not here to compete or step on other people's toes but we do feel we have a unique offer.

Using the power of technology, Drupal - particularly Drupal 11 to structure content, present it in novel ways and connect events, ideas and people together.

*Bear with me while I continue to work on this site nearly daily.  Currently getting close to finishing the Information Architecture in the menu system and will be rolling out layouts and reaching out to people to curate events.

Not the usual approach I'd take building a website in public with unfinished bits, but it's an outlet for me and I'm doing it little and often , rewarding and great for mental health to do something creative and productive.