MMO ‘Today marks a real milestone for the future of our seas, as England’s first marine plans have been formally adopted by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Owen Paterson. The first two plans cover the East inshore and offshore areas. The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has published the final plans, and a range of accompanying documents, on our website.  Marine plans will inform and guide decisions on development in marine and coastal areas, while conserving and enhancing the environment and recognising leisure uses too. Click here to read more

The marine plans will provide much-needed guidance for sustainable development in English waters, and cover the coast and seas from Flamborough Head to Felixstowe. Many of you will have been involved in the dialogue and consultations to help develop the East marine plans including workshops and meetings held along the East coast. Your contributions have helped us greatly to ensure the final version is as robust as possible, taking into account a range of evidence and other information.  We look forward to working with many of you as the East marine plans are put into practice and as we produce the remaining marine plans for all English waters anticipated by 2021.

If you have any questions about marine planning, please feel free to email us at planning@marinemanagement.org.uk

We have also launched the MMO blog today, where we will be hosting a number of guest bloggers giving their views on marine planning. We will be tweeting throughout the week @The_MMO about the plan areas and the many activities that take place. Please feel free to get involved, using #marineplanning to join the conversation.’

The Planning Advisory Service has recently updated their National Planning Policy Framework Soundness Self-Assessment Checklist to include marine planning.

See http://www.pas.gov.uk/web/pas-test-site/local-planning/-/journal_content/56/332612/15045/ARTICLE

‘Under the duty to co-operate and the Marine and Coastal Access Act, landlocked as well as coastal planning authorities must take the marine planning system into account during plan preparation If you don’t, this could impact on the soundness of plans. The updated document builds those aspects of marine planning relevant to all local authorities into the main soundness checklist, and then adds a more detailed final section…………This more detailed section sets out in full the interactions between terrestrial planning and marine planning, including the requirements of the marine policy statement, and is likely to be of most use to those local planning authorities whose area physically overlaps with the marine area.