About marine planning
Marine planning is a new approach to the management of our seas. The aim is to ensure a sustainable future for our coastal and offshore waters through managing and balancing the many activities, resources and assets in our marine environment.
Marine planning is following a similar approach to terrestrial planning – setting the direction for decision making at a local level to lead to efficient and sustainable use of our marine resources.
Marine planning will:
- guide marine users to the most suitable locations for different activities
- manage the use of marine resources to ensure sustainable levels
- work with all marine users to ensure everyone has an opportunity to contribute to marine plans
- take a holistic approach to decision making and consider all the benefits and impacts of all the current and future activities that occur in our marine environment.
What we do
We were established following the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and one of our delegated responsibilities is preparing marine plans for the English inshore and offshore waters.
We have a duty to take decisions on proposed developments in the plan area in accordance with the Marine Policy Statement (MPS) and marine plans, unless relevant considerations indicate otherwise. It is our job to:
- design a planning process suitable to deliver marine plans
- work with you to integrate and balance all the current marine and future activities into a comprehensive plan
- deliver a marine plan for each marine plan area
- monitor and review plans on a regular basis.
The delegation of marine plan functions from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is made under Section 55 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. Read the delegation of functions relating to marine plans (PDF 1.9 MB) signed in March 2010.
Contact information
Marine Planning Team
Marine Management Organisation
Lancaster House
Hampshire Court
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE4 7YH
Tel: 0191 376 2790
Email: planning@
marinemanagement.org.uk