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MMO and Marine plan policy��Amy Fielding�Amy.Fielding@marinemanagement.org.uk��

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The MMO – who are we?

England’s independent marine regulator

Non-departmental public body under the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

MMO’s vision: A prosperous future for our seas, coasts and communities

Goal 2 of the MMO’s 7 goals: Manage a widely owned Marine Planning framework that optimises, prioritises and manages our seas

The MMO is the independent regulator for England’s seas.

We are a non-departmental public body which sits under Defra. The MMO have a wide range of responsibilities as listed on the slide: We license, regulate and plan marine activities in the seas around England so that they're carried out in a sustainable way

In addition to being the statutory marine planning authority in developing marine plans and licensing marine activities, our responsibilities include managing of the English fishing fleet in respect to capacity and quota, creating and enforcing marine conservation byelaws; and being part of the initial response to marine emergencies.

The importance of marine planning is highlighted in Goal 2 of the MMO’s 7 goals - Manage a widely owned Marine Planning framework that optimises, prioritises and manages our seas.

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What is Marine Planning?

Process used to manage the use of marine resources
Marine environment is increasingly busy
Optimising co-existence
Facilitating sustainable marine development

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The English Marine Plan areas

11 Marine Plan areas in English Waters
Inshore and Offshore
Mean High Water Springs out to the EEZ boundary
Extend to all tidal inshore waters
20-year horizon

These 11 marine plan areas are covered by 6 marine plans – The East, North East, North West, South, South East and South West with Durham WT sitting in the NE mp area

The South East Marine Plan is the only English marine plan that doesn’t have an offshore plan area due to the close boundary with the French marine area.

The inshore marine plan area ranges from MHWS (including the waters of any estuary or river or channel, so far as the tide flows at MHWS) out to 12 nm. The offshore marine plan stretches from 12nm out to the boundary of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) so up to 200 nautical miles

The first plan to be adopted was the East Marine Plan in 2014, followed by the South in 2018.

North East, North West, South East and South West Marine Plans were most recent & adopted in June 2021.

Each of the plans have a 20 year horizon, though each is reviewed every three years

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MMO Remit

M

MMO

IFCAs

EA

NE

MCA

TH

HAs

TCE

LAs

CEFAS

Seafish

*

JNCC

BEIS

*

Advisory

Fisheries enforcement

Development enforcement

Surveillance

Licensing / permitting

Planning

Marine conservation

Predominant marine regulator

Vessel owner

Key

This slide shows the range of MMO responsibilities in relation to other organisations.

There are lots of organisations that have overlapping functions in marine area and this figure shows the varied responsibilities of these, highlighting the limit to which their remit extends.

we cover from MHWS to 200 nautical miles or the median line with neighbouring countries

Acronym guide:

IFCA – inshore fisheries and conservation authority

EA – environment agency

NE – natural England

MCA – maritime and coastguard agency

TH- trinity house

HAs – harbour authorities

TCE – the crown estate

LAs – local authorities

CEFAS – centre of environment, fisheries and aquaculture science

Seafish – a NDPB (non-departmental public body) set up to support the seafood industry

JNCC – joint nature conservation committee

BEIS – department for business energy industrial strategy

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Why do you need to take account of marine plans?

It is a legal requirement for marine plans to be considered in all decisions that affect England's marine area, now and into the future.

Decisions that take account of marine plans:

have a reduced risk of legal challenge
are informed by the best available evidence

This means that England's marine area is managed sustainably and time and money can be saved.

Using the Marine Plans

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Using the Marine Plans

Marine and Coastal Access Act (MCAA) Section.58

When you work alongside public authorities, it’s important to note that any decisions need to be in line with section 58(1) and section 58(3) of the Marine and Coastal Access Act.

Section 58 (1) requires all public authorities that take authorisation or enforcement decisions to do so in accordance with the marine plans unless relevant considerations indicate otherwise. For example, this could be the approval, confirmation, consent, licence, or permission which affect or might affect the UK marine area.

Section 58(3) requires all public authorities making other decisions which are not authorisation or enforcement, but can still affect the marine area, to have regard to the Marine Policy Statement and marine plans. This means that all other public authority functions, such as the adoption of local plans, revisions of management plans for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, must consider and have regard to marine plans under S.58(3).

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Decisions made in accordance with a marine plan

Section 58(1)

These vary widely and include:

MMO determination of marine licence applications.
Environment Agency permitting of flood and coastal defence works and Environmental Permitting Regulations permits dealing with water discharges, waste, regulated industry and water abstraction.
Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) determining relevant planning applications.
Natural England consenting activity within SSSIs with a marine element.
Historic England designating wreck sites and/or access to them.

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Decisions made having regard to a marine plan

Broadly, decisions having regard to a marine plan can be considered in two types:

(a) Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) which are determined by the Secretary of State (also S.58(5)).

(b) Decisions that are not authorisation or enforcement but affect the UK marine area. For example, the adoption of a plan that goes on to inform a relevant authorisation or enforcement decision.

Section 58(3)

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Marine Planning and Licensing in context with Terrestrial Plans

Local Plan Development

Decision-maker (Planning applications)

Marine Plan Development

Marine Licences

Terrestrial and Marine Planning overlap
Facilitating development
Reducing conflicting planning regimes
Reduce duplication in the consents process

To put marine planning into context, our marine planning team has similar functions to a local planning authority strategic planning team. And our marine licensing team, has similar functions to a development management team.

As this graphic shows, the remit of terrestrial planning authorities extends down to mean low water springs and the MMO’s remit extends up to mean high water springs. This means that there is an overlap of the intertidal area where an applicantt may need both planning permission and a marine licence.

A number of terrestrial developments that impact upon the coastal or marine area will also need to have regard for marine plan policies.

The territorial overlap ensures holistic management of marine and terrestrial environments. This is reinforced by the Duty to Cooperate (DtC) introduced under the Localism Act.

There are different statutory requirements on authorities when using marine plans to make decisions on local plans or for a planning permission. We will return to these differences later in this session.

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Flooding and erosion

In the marine plans, we don’t explicitly have policies that address flooding and erosion but we have Climate Change and infrastructure policies which aims are linked in with the effects of coastal change.

For example, In CC-3 "Proposals should demonstrate that they have taken into account existing plans, such as shoreline management plans, estuary management plans and other local-level plans, including coastal change management areas, local flood risk management plans and strategies as well as beach management plans, where applicable.“

Marine plans defer to the shoreline management plans on erosion and flooding and any applications/plan developments should just show that they have given consideration to the appropriate marine plan.

The environment agency are responsible for producing flood risk assessments and as such, we don’t explicitly deal with erosion and flooding in marine plans as this falls under the remit of the EA. This is because there is already existing legislation and we would only signpost to those policies/documents in marine plans rather than introduce our own policy.

Some tools that can be used to help you use the marine plan policies:

The marine plan itself which gives an overview of the regional aims.
The technical annex has more detailed descriptors of policy aim and intent.
EMP Is the mapping service which can show spatial policy information for Whitby and any

Speeding up planning process, and offshore wind- cant answer

Licensing questions/ LA – Cant answer

Q about licensing process – can answer

Flooding & erosion: fine to speak, we don’t have specific policies, FCERM, SMP

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Participation in marine plan development

As part of our responsibility, we shall:

keep stakeholders informed of the East Marine Plan progress

y

provide feedback on views and representations made through our consultations

y

consider all stakeholder responses, and where appropriate, integrate them into the development of the East Marine Plan

y

publish a summary of consultation responses

The Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 is the guiding legislation for Marine planning and has already been mention to co-ordinate activities and development. To ensure the plans are fit for purpose at the outset, they have to be developed in context.

The development process of marine planning can be seen in the wheel on the slide. As you can see from the diagram, evidence and stakeholder engagement is central to each step of the planning process. We source our evidence through ongoing stakeholder engagement and our evidence team, which produce and commission evidence projects.

At every stage, stakeholder engagement is used to gather opinions and feedback. This ensures that the marine plans are as informed as possible and reduces the amount of challenge at the public consultation phase.

This is currently happening in the East, where we are replacing the marine plan and have signed of the SPP which states how we are going to engage with the public and stakeholders in the area. We are ow heading int the IWSE phase and this stage is where the public and any interested stakeholder is invited to be involed in informing the plan issues.

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Thank you

Amy.Fielding@marinemanagement.org.uk

www.gov.uk/MMO

@the_mmo #marineplanning