The Impacts of Marine Development on the Publicness of the Sea within UK Marine Policy

Overview of Research

This research considers how marine spatial planning in the UK operates in relation to management of offshore development and assessment of the impact of such development on social and cultural factors. Four key themes have emerged from reviewing the academic literature in relation to the consenting of marine development projects, the assessment of social and cultural impacts within the decision-making process, and wider discourses on the conceptualisation, and publicness, of marine space. These are:

(1) the publicness of the sea;

(2) the publicness of marine governance institutions;

(3) the publicness exhibited within marine development decision making processes,

(4) the impacts of development on the publicness of the sea.

Within this research the marine environment is conceptualised as a public space through the application of urban planning public space literature. By considering how the sea is used and how it is viewed by developers, regulators and sea users allows for an attempt to answer deeper questions regarding how we decide what to use the sea for? Who makes these decisions? And how are the public (indeed, which public) included within this.

Using a qualitative case study approach, with the English Marine Area as my case study, this research explores the development of marine regulatory legislation and policy. From a regulatory perspective, the ‘legitimate use of the sea’ is explored. This term, which appears as a criterion for decision making within the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 (MCAA2009) but finds its routes, undefined, within 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), can either be defined in purely navigational terms (as per previous legislation) or include an open-ended list of activities (as per the MCAA2009 Explanatory Notes). The question becomes ‘what is legitimate’, and for who?

The research methodology applied to this thesis aims to explore the process of marine licence decision making and is based on the hypothesis that there is a disconnect between legislation and policy formulation of the value of marine space to that of the lived experience of those who use it. It is thus contested that the contemporary UK approach to the management of marine development underpinned by an Ecosystem Based Management Approach falls short in its appreciation of the lived experience of marine space, with reference here to The Production of Space thesis attributed to Henri Lefebvre (Lefebvre 1991).

The four research themes are explored through analysis of the marine policy and legislation in the UK to establish the regulatory context for marine development decision making. Analysis is then geographically located within English waters to consider the marine licensing process and development pressures within a specific decision-makers jurisdiction. The issues raised at this national level are then explored in more detail within the South East marine area, with the Goodwin Sands employed as a location-based study of lived experience versus development pressure. The Goodwin Sands provides a fascinating case study of how publics experience marine space, both through physical activities and identity building. The area, infamous as the site of countless wrecks up to and including WWII vessels and aircraft, is the largest intertidal sand back in English waters, and located 8 miles off the Kent coast. Goodwin Sands is also subject to both historic and contemporary developmental pressures, with its aggregates dredged during construction of the Channel Tunnel and historic plans to develop an offshore airport to alleviate pressure from the South East’s existing air terminal forming part of its history. Coupled with this, the use of the Goodwin Sands as a seal haul out and its recommended Marine Conservation Zone status add to the complexity of the area. The Goodwin Sands area is thus an ideal location to explore the extent to which marine regulatory policy captures the lived experience of marine space within decision making processes.