Marine South East receives praise for Regional backing of waterfront strategy
An inspectors' report on the South East Plan has recently been published and makes specific reference to Marine South East’s work on representing the marine industry in the development of waterfront sites. The report stated:
"We were made aware by Marine South East of the particular threats from higher value uses, often mixed uses, to marine industries on waterfront sites"
The report went on to look at how the waterfront strategy will help safeguard the use of appropriate sites for marine companies.
"There is a wider issue in relation to industries within the supply chain for ports and marinas. We heard that the outcome of the current pilot waterfront strategy commissioned by SEEDA along the South Coast centred on the Solent will be to identify key sites for the marine sector. We recommend that the need for such sites to be safeguarded in LDDs (Local Development Documents) should be added to Policy (in the regional spatial strategy) rather than any particular sub regional strategy.
This is because the pilot strategy will affect both South Hampshire and the Sussex Coast, but once future strategies have extended right around the coast including the Thames Estuary, the outcome would be of relevance to local authorities in Kent Thames Gateway and East Kent and Ashford too."
Jonathan Williams, Marine South East Chief Executive, believes this is real progress for the industry: "this is a real breakthrough. Over the past couple of years we have been plugging away at this issue and working to represent to the industry at a regional level and ensure that the trend for shrinking access to the water doesn't continue.
"However, this isn't the end of the issue: the inspectors' recommendations need to be reflected in the final regional spatial strategy, and we then need to ensure that the resulting policy is reflected in individual planning cases."
If you would like to see the full report go to
http://www.gos.gov.uk/gose/planning/regionalPlanning/southEastPlan/
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