English marine sustainability plans

It is the responsibility of the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to prepare inshore and offshore marine plans. plans set out how national marine policy is implemented.

In 2016, the MMO engaged Ramboll to produce a sustainability appraisal scoping report for seven of their inshore and offshore marine plans covering a large proportion of English waters.

Leading a consortium of consultancies, we provided project leadership and key technical skills to produce a sustainability appraisal scoping report to feed into the development of these marine plans in an ambitious 6-month timeframe.

The purpose of the sustainability appraisal is to assess the potential impacts of the plans on the marine environment over a 20-year period, setting out the sustainability effects of the marine plans to ensure more transparent decisions.

It is also a requirement of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and, under EU law, must incorporate the requirements of the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive.

The scoping stage defines what is important for sustainability, ensuring that the assessment can be focused on the issues that are most significant in each area.

Ramboll focused on the collection of key data and employed a novel approach to enable easy interpretation by key stakeholders, including the public.

We provided a fully searchable baseline database, produced visually appealing report cards for each issue and generated a combined sustainability appraisal scoping report encompassing all seven plans. The information provided a solid foundation that the MMO is now using to build the evidence base for the plan-making process.

Stakeholder engagement demanded an open and transparent process. We engaged directly with stakeholders, which included a blog written for the government’s website.

Ramboll has also worked with the MMO on the sustainability appraisal of the South marine plans.