Dr Shaun Nicholson, Head of Marine Licensing at the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), explains more about the decision-making process for applications and how the public can have their say on proposed activities.
We appreciate there is often a lot of interest in our role in making decisions on marine licence applications – proposed activities under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009.
It’s crucial we give people the opportunity to input into our decision-making. However if you want to have your say it’s important that you get involved at the right point in the legal process we follow and provide the right information.
The marine licensing process
We publish a lot of information about applications both on our public register and in some instances in the selected cases section of our website.
Once a marine licence application has been received by the MMO the stages it generally follows are:
- Publication
- Consultation
- Analysis and decision-making
- Decision notification and publication of documents on the public register
Marine licensing consultations
We require marine licensing applicants to place public notices in relevant local media advertising their proposed activities and giving details of how people can have their say.
When applications are open for public consultation details are also published online on the Marine Licensing public register. This includes the dates for the consultation period and the means to submit your comments and evidence.
We also use our Twitter account to highlight cases where consultations are due to close. Follow us @The_MMO.
1 comment
Comment by Roger Thompson posted on
This mechanism is welcome! I live on the North Norfolk Coast and the MMO process here was badly handled and lead to a breakdown of constructive dialogue. This was perhaps a teething issue.
2 Issues standout in retrospect. 1) The usage of the foreshore by the local "longshore workers and users" was ignored or not perceived to exist. 2) The use of a dynamically GPS located heavy lift barge (Svanen) led to some scores of grey and common seal deaths, AND when the barge had to run for "weather" SW to Yarmouth mayhem was created for the local lobster and crab men. No planning had been done by the Contractors and such should have been part of the license permissions for Sheringham Shoal
I recommend a "dynamic" check list of issued on you www to remind people of the potential issues that might arise because they HAVE ALREADY DONE SO (here and perhaps elsewhere. This is at the heart of QA/QC practice, "learn from experience and mistakes". A credible management must locate experience in the Corporate Body and use it. My Paperwork on issue 2 went into Whitehall via Norman Lamb MP and the Svanen was withdrawn and a jack up used instead.