Draft C-SCOPE Marine Plan Consultation

You are invited to comment on the Draft C-SCOPE Marine Plan. Your feedback is particularly important as this is a pilot project which could help to inform national marine planning. The Draft C-SCOPE Marine Plan is a non-statutory plan which aims to provide users, managers and regulators of the marine plan area, whether in public, private or voluntary sectors, with direction, policies and advice to ensure that their plans and activities contribute to sustainable development in the area. While the Plan should be taken as a whole, it is also intended to be complementary to existing plans and strategies. It seeks to avoid duplication as far as possible but does sign-post users to other relevant plans and strategies where they overlap.

Additionally there is an aspiration that the C-SCOPE Marine Plan will become a material consideration for local planning and regulatory authorities when making decisions on new applications for development, and eventually be given some statutory recognition through incorporation into local plans and national marine plans when they are developed.

The main document can be viewed here:

• Draft C-SCOPE marine plan (part1)
• Draft C-SCOPE marine plan (part2)

The appendices can be viewed here:

• Appendix 1: Organisations involved in the C-SCOPE Marine Planning process
• Appendix 2: Community Workshop Report
• Appendix 3: Data Confidence Assessment Methods
• Appendix 4: Spatial Analysis Methods
• Appendix 5: Sensitivity Maps
  Appendix 5: Pressures associated with Marine Activities
• Appendix 6: Areas of Seabed Geological Interest
• Appendix 7: Sectoral Interactions Matrix
• Appendix 8: Potential Consultees
• Appendix 9: Constraints Mapping Methods
• Appendix 10: Seascape Character Types Management Guidance Summary
• Appendix 11: Data used to inform the C-SCOPE Marine Plan
• Appendix 12 Bibliography
• Appendix 13: Seabed Mapping Methods and Data
• Appendix 14. Suggested indicators and monitoring regimes

Documents which inform and support the Marine Plan can be viewed here:

• Dorset Land and Seascape Character Assessment
• Dorset Offshore Renewables Capacity Report
• Dorset Offshore Renewables Capacity Report - Addendum
• C-SCOPE Socio-economic Report
• C-SCOPE Forecasting Document
• Dorset Coast Topic Papers: The topic papers have been created to provide up to date sectoral information for the Dorset Coast Strategy Review and to inform the Dorset Marine Plan.
  • Topic paper Access and Recreation
  • Topic paper Climate Change
  • Topic paper Coastal Communities
  • Topic paper Coastal Defence
  • Topic paper Fisheries
  • Topic paper Landscape and Seascape
  • Topic paper Marine and Maritime Industries
  • Topic paper Military Activity
  • Topic paper Ports and Shipping
  • Topic paper Water Quality and Pollution

The Sustainability Appraisal, which informs the Marine Plan and assesses its contribution to sustainable development of the area, can be viewed here:

• Sustainability Appraisal Report - Non -Technical Summary
• Sustainability Appraisal Report
• Sustainability Appraisal Scoping Report
• Sustainability Appraisal Scoping Report – Annex B Assessment Tables

The Habitats Regulations Screening Assessment, which assesses potential effects of the Marine Plan on European designated sites, can be viewed here:

• Habitats Regulations Screening Assessment

The consultation period is twelve weeks, and you are asked to respond by Friday the 9th of March 2012. We welcome all comments, positive or negative.

Please download the response document, and either return it with your comments via email: ness.smith@dorsetcc.gov.uk with the subject “Draft C-SCOPE Marine Plan Consultation Response”

Or send your written comments to the address below:
Draft C-SCOPE Marine Plan Consultation Response, Dorset Coast Forum, Environment Directorate, County Hall, Colliton Park, Dorchester, DT1 1XJ

Once the consultation is complete, all comments will be considered and the Marine Plan amended where necessary, this will then be published on the C-SCOPE website.