Scottish Marine Act

The Scottish Marine Bill was passed in February 2010. It contains provisions to modernise and streamline the management of the marine environment to enable the new overarching a Scottish marine management organisation ‘Marine Scotland’ to manage Scottish marine issues. Marine Scotland came into force in April and was formed by joining a number of existing marine organisations together. Marine Scotland will not deal with HROs and this is a significant difference with the English and Welsh Act.

The legislation will also introduce new measures for marine planning and propose that a new national marine strategic plan be developed.

The Bill as passed can be found here.

The important aspects of the Act

• The Act will introduce a new statutory system of marine planning and also propose the streamlining of the licensing system to encourage greater economic investment in areas such as renewable energy.
• It will create Scottish Marine Regions planning bodies, which will be led by local stakeholders to set out local objectives and develop local plans for their marine areas.
• The Act contains provisions for a new national marine plan, which it suggests will set out the national strategic marine objectives and priorities for Scotland.
• A central theme of the Bill is sustainable development and the protection of the marine environment. It proposes improved conservation to ensure a healthy future for Scotland’s marine wildlife.
• The Act also highlights that Scottish Ministers are seeking additional devolution of marine planning and nature conservation matters in the offshore area around Scotland, between 12nm and 200nm.

Further details and the reaction of the ports industry

The Act brings up a number of important points of principle and some significant differences from the English and Welsh Marine and Coastal Access Act. The generally very healthy state of Scotland’s seas, the reduction of pollutants over the past 20 years and the fact that 90% of Scottish coastal waters are designated as “excellent water quality” are heavily stressed. One of the main aims is to produce “greater certainty” for marine developers and users and also “maximise the socio economic and environmental value of the marine resource”. The economic and development aspects are focussed on in the Act and rather better than in the English version. The Bill as passed will now trigger off a process based on a National Marine Plan. At regional and local level, Scottish Marine Regions (SMRs) will be set up and will be led by local stakeholders and “interested individuals” who will in turn develop local plans.

Another major proposal is the setting up of Marine Scotland which will have prime responsibility for collecting marine data, marine planning and licensing; again, a key duty on Marine Scotland will be to deliver increased economic growth. Marine plans will have statutory force and the consultation process will last two years. Plans will be reviewed every five years.

On licensing, there is criticism of the current need to obtain multiple licensing, so there is scope to introduce some tidying up here. However, as has happened with the English Act, the Act will bring into the licensing regime dredging activity itself (rather than disposal) and possibly environmental assessment. But the overall intention is to reduce the regulatory burden and this is something that we will want to pursue.

Also in the Act was a plan to create a new network of sites called Marine Protection Areas (MPAs) which will be in addition to the existing Habitats Directive network. This opens question of factoring in socio-economic uses, something we focussed on in our response. Unlike the development of MCZs in England, which will be developed using a number of regional forums and stakeholders groups, the strategy MPAs in Scotland will be set more centrally meaning that there will be a greater role for the BPA in the process.