The RYA welcomes the groundbreaking Marine and Coastal Access Act which received Royal Assent on Thursday 12 November.
Gus Lewis RYA Head of Legal and Government Affairs: “Although we supported the marine and Coastal Access Bill in principle we proposed a number of amendments on which we lobbied members of the House of the Lords to put forward to the House.
The majority of our amendments were taken account of and as such we are very pleased with the resulting Act. It goes further in protecting and taking account of recreational boaters interests, as far as is possible within the context of the Act, than the draft Bill had done.
“It’s been a lot of work over the past 4 years; with extensive lobbying and recommendations made to key DEFRA officials but it has paid off.”
The Act aims to create a strategic marine planning system based firmly on sustainable development principles. Its journey started in 2001 when the Government made a commitment to improve marine conservation.
Summary of RYA amendments and outcomes
1. The Bill was drafted so that byelaws could be made in relation to Marine Conservation Zones (MCZ) specifically to regulate recreational vessels. We wanted the reference to recreational vessels removed so that they could not be unfairly penalised. This amendment was accepted.
2. The Bill also would have put UK vessels at a disadvantage compared to foreign vessels and we believed this to be unfair. Our proposed amendment to rectify this was accepted in the House of Lords
3. We wanted to make sure that any person charged for breaching any byelaws relating to a MCZ would have a defence that they took reasonable steps to avoid committing the breach. The Act will contain a defence for securing the safety of a vessel and we obtained an assurance from Government that a ‘reasonable steps’ defence would be included in byelaws made under the Act.
4. The Bill provided that, when creating an MCZ, the relevant authorities “may” take into account socio-economic factors. We proposed an amendment to change the ”may” to ”must”. The purpose of this amendment was not actually to achieve an amendment, which we knew the Government would not agree to, but to counteract proposals by environmental organisations that socio economic factors, like the effect an MCZ might have on recreational boating, should not be considered at all. The attempts of environmental organisations to remove the reference to socio-economic factors were successfully resisted.
5. We also received ministerial assurances in relation to minimising the impact of the coastal access provisions on clubs and marinas.