Memorandum submitted by the Department
for Transport
1. The identification of Marine Environmental
High Risk Areas (MEHRAs) around the UK's coast is one of the recommendations
of Lord Donaldson's landmark report Safer Ships Cleaner Seas (1994),
prepared in the aftermath of the Braer incident. Lord Donaldson's
intention was that MEHRAs should be areas of high environmental
sensitivity which are also at risk from shipping.
2. In the years since publication of Safer
Ships Cleaner Seas, much has been done. The initial work was done
in 1996 and 1997 by the Department of the Environment and the
Department of Transport, and carried on under the merged Department
of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR).
3. DETR retained consultants, who produced
a report setting out a methodology and criteria for identifying
MEHRAs. A public consultation was initiated in February 2000,
designed to elicit comments on that methodology and criteria.
4. DETR instructed its consultants to undertake
further work to reflect the responses to this consultation. The
consultants revised the methodology and criteria and in March
2001 produced a further report.
5. From April 2001, there followed a sequence
of meetings of UK and Devolved Administration departments and
agencies. These inter-departmental meetings concentrated on the
development of a report which would build on and supplement the
consultants' report, setting out the protective measures already
in place and assessing whether further measures are needed. The
meetings took place on 9 April 2001, 30 August 2001, 18 March
2002 and 30 May 2002. There was discussion of taking MEHRAs forward
through designation of spatial areas, or through identifying coastlines
from which vessels should keep clear. The approach which it was
decided to follow was to go back to Lord Donaldsons original concept,
as set out in Safer Ships Cleaner Seas, of keeping vessels at
a distance from sensitive coastlines. The 30 May 2002 inter-departmental
meeting agreed that, in the case of a number of MEHRAs, vessel
traffic surveys were needed to inform decisions about possible
routeing and/or reporting measures to protect the MEHRAs.
6. The Department for Transport (DfT) and
its Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) arranged for traffic
surveys off a number of the MEHRAs on the UK's east and west coasts
to be carried out in August, September and October 2002. The findings
of the traffic surveys would assist DfT and MCA in developing
proposals on routeing measures to submit to the International
Maritime Organization (IMO), primarily aimed at moving vessel
traffic away from the coastline.
7. Further meetings were intended to take
place after the reports of the 2002 traffic surveys had been received
and analysed. However, the sinking of the tanker Prestige in November
2002 had a major impact on the resources available to DfT for
taking MEHRAs forward. The Prestige incident generated very substantial
amounts of work for those in DfT who were in the lead on MEHRAs,
and those high levels of work on the Prestige ran from November
2002 through to February 2003. In Europe, the Prestige was an
important issue at Transport Council on 5-6 December 2002 and
Environment Council on 9-10 December. In the House of Commons,
there was a debate on the Commission's Communication on improving
safety at sea in response to the Prestige in European Standing
Committee A on 12 February 2003.
8. As one of the consequences of the sinking
of the tanker Prestige, France asked the UK and other countries
to join with it in preparing a case for a Particularly Sensitive
Sea Area (PSSA) in the English Channel and neighbouring waters.
Within UK waters, the proposed PSSA covered: the Shetland Islands,
the Orkney Islands, the north and west coasts of mainland Scotland,
the Hebrides (including St Kilda) and the north and north-east
coasts of Northern Ireland; and the English Channel, its western
approaches, the north coast of Devon and Cornwall and the south
coast of Wales.
9. PSSA is the international designation
which represents the very highest level of environmental protection
available through the IMO. To achieve PSSA status, an area must
not only meet ecological, socio-economic or scientific criteria
but also demonstrate risk from international shipping. Conceptually,
there is a marked similarity between a PSSA and a MEHRA, the key
difference being that the internationally recognised PSSA designation
requires the shipping risk to be from international shipping.
10. The countries submitted their proposal
for a PSSA to the IMO in mid-April 2003, and it was considered
at the IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) on
14-18 July 2003. With a minor adjustment to the extent of the
area east of the Shetland Isles, MEPC gave "agreement in
principle" to the designation of the area as a PSSA. We expect
that IMO's Sub-Committee on Safety of Navigation will approve
the associated protective measure (mandatory reporting by tankers
carrying heavy grades of oil) when it meets in 2004, and that
IMO will proceed to formally adopt the PSSA. There will be further
work for the DfT and MCA, in cooperation with the French authorities,
to develop appropriate routeing measures in the light of the inclusion
of the English Channel in the PSSA.
11. Meanwhile, the Government remains committed
to the MEHRAs concept and work continues. The DfT and MCA are
already developing proposals on the basis of the information acquired
through the traffic surveys carried out in 2002. In August 2003,
the DfT commissioned some further traffic surveys. There will
be a further inter-departmental meeting or meetings to finalise
the comprehensive report covering the actions taken since publication
of Lord Donaldson's original Safer Ships Cleaner Seas which will
announce the areas which have been identified as MEHRAs. An outline
of the results of all the traffic surveys, and the proposed IMO
routeing measures, will be included in that report.
12 September 2003
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