Current legislation and policy issues

The next year promises to be a busy one for the ports industry. In Westminster recently there have been two large pieces of legislation which all have important implications for our sector.

The 2009 Marine and Coastal Access Act

The recently enacted Marine and Coastal Access Act, was a substantial piece of legislation that will have a large impact across the whole ports sector. The Act included provisions to create a new Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to administer planning, licensing activities, marine nature conservation and the management of fisheries in the marine area. It also includes proposals to give the public greater access to coastal areas.

The MMO is scheduled to become fully operational on 1 April 2010 and will take on licensing responsibilities from the Marine Fisheries Agency and Harbour Orders applications from the DfT.

In April 2009 the Scottish Government launched a similar marine management body north of the border and a Scottish Marine Bill is currently being considered by MSPs at Holyrood.

The 2008 Planning Act and the NPPS

The 2008 Planning Act will introduce a new body, the Infrastructure Planning Commission, to streamline decisions on major infrastructure developments such as harbours. Importantly for our industry the Act will pave the way for a National Ports Policy Statement (launched for consultation in November 2009) and require the DfT to develop market forecasts for the sector.

Legislation lost for the time being

Following the publication of the Draft Marine Navigation Bill in spring 2008 the ports industry was hopful that the legislation would be introduced in the 2008/09 Parliamentary session however it was left out of the 2008 Queen’s Speech and we must assume that for the time being this Bill is ‘dead’. The Bill was seen by the industry as a overdue move to tidy up some of the regulatory aspects of our sector and we were disappointed to see it dropped. It included proposals to reinforce the industry’s ‘Port Marine Safety Code’, reform certain aspects of the pilotage certification system and improve the management powers of General Lighthouse Authorities.

Other areas

Aside from these Bills we are in the latter stages of a ports policy review, which forms part of the government’s wider ‘Towards a Sustainable Transport System’ strategy. There are still some outstanding aspects of this review that are yet to be resolved which we are continuing to follow with interest, notably the guidance for Trust ports and the issue of who pays for transport infrastructure improvements around ports.

On other issues, the ports sector is also being asked to comply with a new system of security regulations, participate in the discussions about the restructuring of the management of the UK’s border controls and develop the UK’s implementation strategy for the Water Framework Directive.