Current marine planning

The East Inshore and East Offshore areas are the first areas in England to be selected for marine planning. The East Inshore area includes a coastline that stretches from Flamborough Head to Felixstowe.

Map showing the first two marine plan areas
© British Crown, NERC, SeaZone Solutions Ltd. All rights reserved. [SZ042010.001]
© Crown Copyright and database right 2012. All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey Licence No. 100049981.

A high resolution version of the map (PDF 5.1 MB) is available. This map is indicative only and boundaries are subject to change as plan making starts in each area.

Geographic information system shapefiles (Zip file 982 KB) are available for the East Inshore and East Offshore plan area boundaries. The zip file includes seven files, all of which must be downloaded for the files to work correctly.

The East of England is playing an important part in the marine planning process, and was selected due to:

its wide range of marine activities, and its potential for future sustainable development and its contribution to the national economy
major wind farms are planned for the region, and provides an ideal opportunity for us to sustainably manage the competing uses of this area prior to a key development
its range of communities, including less well off areas that will benefit from economic confidence in sustainable development.

Further information about the selection process.

This does not mean that the other marine plan areas across England will excluded from marine planning. Over time, all 11 marine plan areas will have marine plans in place. We will communicate any important information arising from the plan making process to areas not currently involved in plan making while continuing to collect information and build relationships with stakeholders in these areas. The future marine planning will contain more information on those future plan areas. In the meantime, The Marine Policy Statement sets the framework for licensing decisions to be made in compliance with national policy in the absence of marine plans.