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Key national documents

These are key documents that impact on all marine plan areas in England. There are separate key documents pages for the East marine plan areas and the South marine plan areas.

Baseline report for developing partnership working at the coast (Coastal Partnerships Network 2013)
Coastal partnerships have been active in developing, delivering and managing coastal areas for a number of years. They represent experienced and diverse hubs at strategic locations around the coasts of the UK. While the UK-wide geographical coverage of these partnerships is not entirely complete, they have generally developed in areas of intense land and marine activity where there are high levels of potential for conflict between stakeholders and users.

A newly published report, commissioned from the Coastal Partnerships Network, which includes contributions from 40 English partnerships provides a technical analysis of the levels of activity and engagement within coastal partnerships. It also maps their spatial coverage around England in relation to marine plan areas.

Baseline report for developing partnership working at the coast (PDF 4.9 MB)

The report also provides the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing partnership working in each marine plan area. The main services delivered by coastal partnerships include stakeholder engagement, information dissemination, input to coastal and marine planning, policy and legislation, and facilitation.

With the information available through the report, the Marine Management Organisation can now explore opportunities for coastal partnerships to contribute to the marine planning process and overall sustainable management of our marine areas.
Evaluation of the potential for co-location of activities in marine plan areas
This report evaluates the potential for co-location of activities and interests in marine plan areas. It provides a high level screen of the co-location potential of activities/structures, primarily focussing on their physical compatibility/incompatibility and the resulting levels of management that may be required to facilitate successful co-location. The report was published on 30 May 2013 as part of our marine evidence and information reports.
Evaluation of the current state of knowledge on potential cumulative effects from offshore wind farms (OWF) to inform marine planning and marine licensing
This report provides a summary of the sensitivity of key environmental receptors, such as birds, mammals, fish, benthos and reptiles, arising from construction and operation of offshore wind farms and considers possible cumulative effects on these receptors. The report includes a specific assessment of receptors in the East of England marine plan areas. The report was published on 30 May 2013 as part of our marine evidence and information reports.
Recommendations on the use of habitats maps in the planning process and requirements for future planning areas (October 2012)
The report demonstrates the lack of robust, area-wide evidence for seabed habitats and forces the need to use predictive modeling approaches to obtain area-wide map coverage and was published as part of the first series of marine evidence and information reports.
Compilation of spatial data on marine recreation activities (October 2012)
The report covers national recreation activities and those in the East marine plan areas and builds on data and evidence gathered as part of the regional marine conservation zone projects and identifies key gaps, summarises current evidence, key findings and makes some recommendations for future data gathering in the marine recreation sector.

The report was published as part of the first series of marine evidence and information reports.
A review of marine social and economic data (October 2012)
The report focuses on the preparation of a metadata catalogue of social and economic data, an analysis of the meta data and the development of recommendations to improve the catalogue to help guide decision making towards both the Marine Management Organisation's and Marine Scotland's sustainable development objectives.

The report was published as part of the first series of marine evidence and information reports.
Marine social and economic data: A critical review of tools and methods to apply marine social and economic data to decision making (October 2012)
The report focuses on a review of tools that incorporate social and economic data and identifies a number of gaps in the current suite of tools and was published as part of the first series of marine evidence and information reports.
Evaluating the distribution, trends and value of inshore and offshore fisheries in England (October 2012)
This report collates the currently available evidence on marine fisheries, review its completeness and robustness using a gap analysis for future decision making and support development of the MMO’s fisheries evidence programme.

The report was published as part of the first series of marine evidence and information reports.
Marine plan areas geographic information system shapefiles (August 2012)
Shapefiles (Zip file 7.2 MB) for all marine plan areas, including two types of metadata and our terms of use. All seven of the other files must be extracted for the files to work correctly.
Marine planning factsheets (May 2012)
We have produced four factsheets to provide straightforward information on some of the most common questions and topics around marine planning. The four factsheets are:

Maximising the socio-economic benefits of marine planning for English coastal communities (July 2011)
The independently conducted study is a new resource that helps marine planners, developers, local authorities and others with an interest in sustainable development in the marine area to understand various issues affecting coastal communities. It takes a national snapshot of the socio-economic factors currently driving coastal communities in England, from planned developments to tourism, and then looks in more detail at the East of England, the area where the first two marine plans are currently being developed.
Strategic Scoping Report (June 2011)
We carried out a strategic scoping exercise (SSE) to examine the spatial distribution of natural resources and activities within England's marine area, and to provide a national context to the sub-national plans as they are developed.

This report is the first summary of the results from the SSE. It highlights, for the natural environment and the major use sectors, the relative importance of each plan area.
Marine Policy Statement (March 2011)
The Marine Policy Statement (MPS) is the framework for preparing marine plans and taking decisions that affect the marine environment. The MPS was published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Friday 18 March 2011.

More information from www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-marine-policy-statement-published
A description of the marine planning system for England (March 2011)
This document, published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, describes the marine planning system in England for the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) and other interested organisations and persons.

More information from www.gov.uk/government/policies/protecting-and-sustainably-using-the-marine-environment
Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009
Part 3 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 contains information about marine planning, the Marine Policy Statement, marine plans, delegation of functions relating to marine plans, implementation and effect and miscellaneous and general provisions.
Planning Act 2008
The Planning Act 2008 introduced a new system for decisions on applications to build nationally significant infrastructure projects in England and Wales taking into account the guidance provided in National Policy Statements.

The Planning Act 2008 was amended by the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009.

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

Help with documents

Some of these documents are in the portable document format (PDF) for downloading. Adobe Acrobat Reader can be freely downloaded from www.adobe.com/uk/