Marine Licensing is the process for getting planning permission to dig, dump or build something at sea. However, communities currently have no rights to challenge the regulator’s decisions. If you want more protection for our seas, please reply to an important Department of Environment (DEFRA) consultation, before the deadline of 25th February 2015. Unusually, DEFRA […]
» Dredging
- Show you care about our seas enough to ask for more democracy in UK marine licensing
- Whitsand Bay (Cornwall) toxic dumping permit unlawful
- Plymouth campaigners opposing waste-dumping at sea win a victory
- Further evidence of dredging induced coastal erosion
- Dredging threatens Great Barrier Reef coral
- Marine Aggregate Dredging statistics
- Long term dredging damage to Thames fishing grounds
- Deep sea mining is about to commence
- Tyndal research paper into Offshore Aggregate induced Erosion
- Judicial review of Whitsand Bay, Cornwall, dredging decision
- Erosion threatens Scroby windfarm stability
- Marinet changes its policy on comments to the MMO about marine aggregate licence applications
- New Dredging Beach Hazard
- Even more East Coast Dredging threatened!
- Dredging off the East Coast continues
- SMP Economic Impact
- Concern over the protection of the Great Barrier Reef from “port dredging”
- More Dredging – more erosion!
- Serious concerns expressed about adverse impact on Whitsand Bay, Cornwall, from MoD dredging
- Even more Marine Aggregate Dredging!
BBC Online News reports, 21st January 2015: ”A coastal waters protection agency (MMO) unlawfully issued a licence for dumping thousands of tonnes of silt off Cornwall. The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has agreed to quash the licence and admitted it was “made unlawfully”. Papers filed at the High Court said there were “inadequacies” in the […]
Please do share this
The campaign group ‘Stop Dumping in Whitsand Bay’ went to the High Court to seek a judicial review of the decision by the Maritime Management Organisation (MMO) to grant a licence to dump 367,000 tonnes of potentially toxic silt dredged from the River Tamar into Whitsand Bay, a local beauty spot as well as a […]
Please do share this
Tyndal Working Paper 97 of December 2006 authored by Mike Walkden and P.K. Stansby, entitled ‘The effect of dredging off Great Yarmouth on the wave conditions and erosion of the North Norfolk Coast’ (including all references). It is a research paper by the Crown Estate, prepared in conjunction with ABPMer, British Geological Survey and HR […]
Please do share this
Oliver Milman of the Guardian published an item concerning the fate of coral brought about by dredging removal of 7m cubic metres of seabed to create a channel to accommodate ships for the Gorgon natural gas project. He quotes research conducted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and the Australian Institute […]
Please do share this
The Crown Estate and BMAPA have provided the following information graphing the area of the UK seabed licensed for aggregate dredging and showing the total area dredged from 2008 until 2012. The overall take appears to be reducing, as has that taken from offshore Great Yarmouth, as it seems to be moving more now to […]
Please do share this
Fishing News of 24th October 2014 published an article written by Tim Oliver on the findings of the Thames fishermen who have seen their fishing grounds damaged by the intense dredging operations in constructing the huge deep water container terminal at Thurrock, on the north bank of the Thames, just 20 miles east of central […]
Please do share this
Environment 360 reports, 20th October 2014: “Armed with new high-tech equipment, mining companies are targeting vast areas of the deep ocean for mineral extraction. But with few regulations in place, critics fear such development could threaten seabed ecosystems that scientists say are only now being fully understood. For years, the idea of prospecting for potentially […]
Please do share this
In the hope of getting some meaningful empirical research performed that would conclusively prove the impact that Offshore Aggregate Dredging is having upon our coastline, MARINET wrote to Mike Walkden and P.K. Stansby, authors of Tyndal Working Paper 97 ‘The effect of dredging off Great Yarmouth on the wave conditions and erosion of the North […]
Please do share this
The Plymouth Herald, 10th October 2014, reports: “Campaigners against the dumping of dredged material off Whitsand Bay have won a major battle in their fight. The High Court has this week granted leave for a judicial review into the Marine Management Organisation’s decision to grant permission for dredging at Devonport Naval Base and subsequent dumping […]
Please do share this
The continuing dredging of aggregate in close proximity to the Scroby wind turbines has brought about a considerable reduction to the Scroby Sandbank and loss of the seabed, to the extent that the wind turbines embedded nearby are now threatened with instability. Three years ago the deeply entrenched power line taking the generated power from […]
Please do share this
Marinet has informed the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), 26th September 2014, that it will no longer be submitting detailed comments to the MMO about marine aggregate licence applications because the MMO has consistently failed to respond in any meaningful form to the comments that Marinet has submitted. Consequently, Marinet has concluded that the MMO is […]
Please do share this
A new and rather novel hazard has arisen on our beaches, discovered when an off duty explosives expert walked by a man exercising his dog by Lower Marine Parade on the beach at Dovercourt (near Harwich) throwing for his retrieval what at first appeared to be a miniature Rugby football. On closer inspection, it was […]
Please do share this
Hot on the heels of issuing a licence for further dredging off the East Coast, the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) have just advised MARINET of a further application, this time for Lafarge Tarmac Marine to take 7,500,000 of sand and shingle from Area 296 and a further 7,500,000 from Area 494 over the next 15 […]
Please do share this
Despite the many of us who objected to issuing a licence to dredge Area 228, a 2.5 x 2 mile block of sea bed situated between five and seven miles offshore to Hopton in Suffolk, the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) have given their consent to further plunder our offshore sea for sand and gravel. This […]
Please do share this
The Save Hemsby Coastline group are thinking of making the National Audit Office aware of the economic wastage being created by the very unfair and unrealistic dictates of the Shoreline Management plan, especially now that they have recently changed the goalposts so that the value of that protected now has to be eight times the […]
Please do share this
The Guardian reports, 11th July 2014: “The amount of money needed to “offset” the impact of a dredging project on the Great Barrier Reef could be as much as $1bn — which is $998m more than the project developer has suggested. Documents obtained under freedom of information reveal huge uncertainty over the investment needed to […]
Please do share this
Hanson Aggregates have been granted approval by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) and their Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA’s) to dredge and remove a further total of 73,050,000 tonnes (ca. forty-five and a half Million cubic metres) of aggregate from the offshore seabed in Areas 401/2, 242, 361A-C, 328A, 212, 240 and 328B and C laying […]
Please do share this
BBC News reports, 7th April 2014: “Environmental campaigners are calling for immediate action to protect coral found off the coast near Plymouth. They say thousands of tonnes of silt dredged from Devonport Dockyard is at risk of overwhelming rare pink sea-fans in Whitsand Bay. Silt dredged from the River Tamar to clear channels for warships […]
Please do share this
Despite the numerous protests made by Great Yarmouth Borough Council, the Parish Councils, MP Brandon Lewis, MARINET and the many individuals who responded opposing the application MLA/2013/00417 that was placed on Friday 1st. November 2013, seeking a licence to permit Volker Dredging to remove a further 22,500,000 tonnes of aggregate over the next 15 years […]
