Memorandum submitted by the Solent Protection
Society (DMB 22)
COMMENTS ON
THE GOVERNMENT
DRAFT MARINE
BILL
This Society was formed in 1956 to ensure the
ecological and environmental wellbeing and wise management of
the Solent waters, including its creeks, rivers and harbours and
its foreshores and surrounding lands.
As such the Society has studied the Draft Marine
Bill with interest and is currently in the process of drafting
its response. However, we understand your Committee will be carrying
out a pre-legislative scrutiny of the coastal access aspects of
this Bill and have invited views on these provisions by Monday
19th May. The relevant paragraphs of our draft comments are therefore
now given below which we hope will be given consideration.
Access to coastal land.
3.1 When responding to the Consultation
Paper on this topic, we agreed entirely with the importance of
improving coastal access, but pointed to some of the very serious
practical difficulties that access rights over the entire length
of the coast may cause in parts of the Solent's uniquely estuarial
form, with its international wildlife values. We felt that the
prime responsibility for access should remain in local hands,
and that new provision and maintenance should be adequately financed.
3.2 The Bill says that an English coastal
route will be proposed strategically by Natural England (NE),
but in close consultation with local interests, and that it will
take due account of issues such as impacts on nature conservation
and land use. The need for consultation with landowners and, for
example, parish councils is recognised, and it is clear that,
in practice, NE will work through local access authorities (eg
County and Unitary Councils). Furthermore, the right of access
will be subject to restrictions or exclusions, for example, for
nature conservation and land management purposes. We consider
that the Bill must make it absolutely clear that, where there
is a conflict of interest between public access and wildlife conservation,
the latter must take precedence (along the lines of the well established
"Sandford Principle").
3.3 Given the intention to secure a long
distance coastal route as a matter of Government policy, the approach
in the Bill seems reasonable, and it removes some of the doubts
that we had at the consultation stage. Although implementation
of the route could well give rise to major issues in some areas,
we believe that the provision for consultation, and, in particular,
for working through local access authorities, offers a fair chance
of resolving route problems by negotiating local balance between
the interests of recreation, land management and conservation.
Where the rights of way authority (as in the case of Hampshire
and the Isle of Wight) is willing to take the lead in preparing
a coastal access strategy, in order to be pro active in improving
coastal access without prejudicing the interests of wildlife conservation
or of landowners, the Bill should make provision for this to happen,
whilst requiring that the coastal access strategy is prepared
in close consultation with Natural England and other interested
parties. It is essential, however, that new routes and the maintenance
of existing ones are adequately financed, and that landowners
should receive adequate compensation where there is a good case
for this.
Mrs Judy Davies
Secretary
Solent Protection Society
May 2008
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