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Thank you very much, colleagues.
I shall kick off by addressing a couple of questions to Ian Pritchard, specifically about the Crown Estate. As I understand it, the Crown Estate suggests that any planning regime that comes out of the committee's deliberations should be non-binding and should presume in favour of development. It indicates that overuse of the precautionary principle should be avoided. Will you expand on those comments?
It is important to say that the local authorities already have planning powers down as far as mean low-water springs. The issue is the planning powers beyond mean low-water springs. The Crown Estate is very supportive of sustainable economic development in the marine environment. Provided that due process is observed by regulators to ensure that development is sustainable and gives due protection to the environment, we would support the economic development of the resource.
Is there a need to simplify and consolidate the existing legislation that applies to the marine environment? From the evidence that we have heard so far, there seem to be a great many different bodies at many levels, all of which have some input to management of the marine environment. Is simplification inevitable?
The Crown Estate is supportive of a bill that is able to deliver a means of rationalising and improving existing legislation.
I am not quite sure whether that was a yes or a no.
Yes.
To follow up Ted Brocklebank's question, do you believe that the Crown Estate Commission as constituted and in how it undertakes its responsibilities is fit for purpose?
I believe that it is. The Crown Estate was constituted under the Crown Estate Act 1961, which is relatively recent legislation. That said, it is no longer the body it was then. It has moved on significantly over the years.
In what way?
We have a much more open and public focus in what we are doing to meet the needs of our customers and stakeholders around the United Kingdom. We are doing many positive things on our urban, rural and marine estates and interests. We invest significantly in research and development to underpin development and economic activity. We support many organisations in their economic development, particularly around the coast.
So, in the context of the bill, you are beyond reform. As an entity, you are fit for purpose. I think you said that you have moved on significantly since 1961. Is that it?
The Crown Estate is committed to moving with the times and to meeting customer expectations. If changes that offer those benefits can be made to the way in which we operate, we are happy to consider them.
That is encouraging. Will you remind us what percentage of your income is spent on research and development and reinvested in communities?
We have a number of reinvestment streams. In the past year, approximately 10 per cent of our marine income in Scotland was reinvested in Scottish research and development and other activities.
In pounds and pence, that amounts to roughly—
About £0.5 million.
You will be aware that the Crown Estate review working group produced a report on behalf of several councils in the Highlands and Islands. I believe that you disagree with its recommendations. Will you tell us why?
The review working group's report makes a number of recommendations, including the selling off over time of our urban and rural interests in Scotland, the transfer of our foreshore interests to local authorities and the transfer of ownership of the seabed to the Scottish Executive. We do not believe that there would be any clear advantage in the transfer of our interests. We have a high level of expertise in marine matters, in the management of our rural estate and in our urban interests. We believe that we offer good value to our customers. We work closely with the communities in which we operate by having representatives around the coastline and close to our estates. We have a good reputation, which is supported by the views of our stakeholders and customers.
We are concentrating on the marine environment today. Your responsibility for the continental shelf, beyond the 12-mile limit, is coming into focus at the moment. You talk about sustainable development and you have some say in relation to offshore wind farms, pipelines, electricity cables under the sea and so on. Do you also get some income from those?
We have some say as the landowner, but we are not the regulator for development activity. We therefore rely on the bodies that are responsible for regulation to decide whether development may take place. There is economic benefit from development but, by helping to underpin generic research and development, we seek to ensure that the industries that operate in the marine environment have the tools to operate effectively and efficiently.
You told one of my colleagues that the amount that you pay back for research is about 10 per cent of your income, so it is clear that there is a large income to be made from both the area up to 12 miles and the area beyond that. Your protestations about investment are somewhat strained, in my view. The Crown Estate could surely spend a lot more money to help us to get a balanced and sustainable environment under the sea.
When we look at new industries, we will invest higher percentages of our revenue in research and development. For the offshore wind energy sector, for example, the Crown Estate has established a trust fund that is used to carry out generic research into offshore wind energy development. The fund is of far greater value than the income that we currently receive from wind power generation, but it is important that we give the sector a kick-start in its early years.
You have disagreed without stating exactly why, but have given us some information about the Crown Estate review working group's approach and you are happy with the marine bill that Ben Bradshaw and his colleagues are involved with in London. As far as I can see, from a letter that I have received from him, there is no intention to reform the Crown Estate. Do you think that that situation is suitable for purpose in Scotland?
One of the concerns that local authorities have expressed through the Crown Estate review working group's report is that they wish to have local control over use of foreshore. However, local authorities already have that control through the planning powers that they operate down as far as mean low-water springs. I am not sure what benefit giving them extra control through divesting the Crown Estate of its interest would offer them. In terms of economic benefit, revenue from the foreshore is very limited, especially in the Highlands and Islands. The cost of managing the estate is significant and the net benefit—if there were any—would be very small.
I have a question specifically for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and a more general question for all our witnesses. SEPA's written submission states that,
The situation is as our submission states, as far as we are aware. We think that that practice is illegal, but it is an area that we would have to examine in greater detail. I would be happy to provide you with further information on that.
I was slightly taken aback when I read that—given that we are considering carbon sequestration as a useful way forward.
The Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency was set up about 15 years ago with the specific focused task of monitoring the industry's compliance with the raft of fisheries rules and regulations that had been generated both by the European Union and nationally. It has required a considerable dedicated effort to complete that task. However, in my time in the agency, as interest in the marine environment has developed, it has become clear that there is plenty of scope for the capabilities that we have as an agency to be used to cover other aspects of marine environment legislation. That is being considered as a way forward by the Scottish Executive with regard to the response that Scotland needs to make to developments in the marine bill at Westminster.
SEPA has about 100 dedicated marine staff working in scientific monitoring and on the regulatory side. They are working at local level, talking directly to the industries that they regulate and to bodies such as those that are represented by my colleagues on the panel. We are also members of the coastal fora and we play a key part in those, particularly in the advisory group on marine and coastal strategy. We look forward to the outcomes from that group.
As a single, United Kingdom-wide body, the Crown Estate has the capacity to adjust to differences between the devolved Administrations. In Scotland, we work closely with the Scottish Executive and stakeholders to deliver its objectives and aspirations. We work closely with many stakeholders. The objective is really to minimise bureaucracy and to work as an efficient and effective organisation to deliver the best for Scotland.
I want to follow that argument for a bit. It is like belling the cat; people say we should simplify and streamline all the legislation that governs activity in the marine environment. How far is that possible or even desirable? Last week, someone made the very pertinent remark that some things are just complicated. Are we giving too much credence to simplifying and streamlining?
Through the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003, we have already seen that the Scottish Administration's approach to regulation of fresh waters and coastal and estuarine waters has resulted in simplification. A lot of European directives have gradually been pulled into one, if you like, and a competent authority—SEPA in this case—has been identified to consider all those. It has helped those whom we regulate because they have only to come to one place or source. We can then co-ordinate our discussions with Scottish Natural Heritage or with the fish-farming communities to get their response out.
It is important to minimise bureaucracy and to streamline regulation—clearly, those must be everybody's aims. There are two routes to achieving them: the first is by voluntary means, through liaison between organisations and through clear and close dialogue, and the second is by legislative change, which the marine bill offers the opportunity to bring about. We are working closely with SEPA and the Fisheries Research Service on a project that will allow data to be e-mailed to a single point from which organisations will be able to pick out data. The client will have a single point of contact for the submission of data for three organisations. We can do that without legislative change. That is the sort of initiative that we should be thinking about and taking forward.
That is exactly what the worldwide web is intended for.
Not at all.
My final question follows on from that. Do you see any gaps in the baseline data that we have, which we should try to fill? If so, how should we do that?
There are gaps in the baseline data. Earlier on, our colleagues from Scottish Natural Heritage said in their submission that we do not yet know enough about the marine environment. We have a particularly rich marine environment here because of the geography of Scotland—where we sit in relation to the continental shelf and Europe. That is a key factor. There are gaps in our knowledge of coastal processes, especially in relation to climate change, rising sea levels—particularly the impact of waves—storm tides, storm forecasting and other such areas. It is clear from events since January 2005 in particular that we need more information about such things. Those are the key areas in which there are gaps.
I want to ask about issues that cross the borders between devolved and reserved issues, between land and sea, and between Scottish waters, UK waters and other countries' waters. A previous witness posed the question: when did integrated coastal zone management suddenly turn into marine spatial planning, and what is the difference between the two? Perhaps our present witnesses could offer some guidance as to the difference between integrated coastal zone management and—the words that are now on everyone's lips—marine spatial planning.
I do not have the holy grail of an answer to give you, convener. Marine spatial planning is not yet with us, so we are still in the coastal zone scenario. Nevertheless, marine spatial planning will have to happen because of all the interests that we have to manage in our own exclusive economic zones.
How far out does marine spatial planning go? If it goes out beyond the 12-mile limit, or even beyond the 3-mile limit, how can local people get involved in it, as Chris Spray suggested?
For me, marine spatial planning requires an extra element. It goes beyond the 3-mile and 12-mile limits and tries to integrate the whole area. It looks ahead to the marine strategy and the marine directive, rather than the land-based water framework directive. Also, there is an element of moving from a voluntary approach—everyone being aware and liaising with each other in a mesh that is, I suspect, a nightmare for those who want to get permission to do something—to a clear structure that has a statutory basis and which links to other planning mechanisms. I talked earlier about the water framework directive and our requirement to produce river basin management plans on which we have to report. That is the sort of thing that we are looking for in marine spatial planning—getting everything integrated on a sound statutory basis, so that people will know where they need to go to get the permissions to develop economic, tourism and other projects.
We see marine spatial planning as the framework—the overlayer, if you like—and ICZM as very much a means of local delivery, with the responsibility for the preparation of local plans with communities and local authorities. The local element is very much a part of the bottom-up approach as well as the top-down approach.
I have a question specifically for SEPA. In your submission, you state:
I will try to cover all those points, but if I forget anything, please tell me.
Do you plan to put in place recording systems to collect that information?
We do. We are discussing a coastal flood strategy with the Scottish Executive. Next month, we will launch a coastal flood watch service, which will provide the equivalent of the information about flooding in river areas that you will have seen on television most nights in the past month, I am afraid to say.
What about invasive, non-native species?
There is concern about those. Interestingly, the matter is being taken up by the United Kingdom and the European Union in relation to the water framework directive. There is a working group on invasive species, which will meet tomorrow.
Is there a possibility that diseases are coming in with those accidental movements that you do not know about?
Absolutely. Disease coming in with invasive non-native species is a key issue that we are worried about. One thing that we know about such species is that they tend to have diseases to which they are fairly resistant but which native populations have never seen and are likely to be affected by.
I have a question on the legal framework, which is initially for SEPA, although I want to hear others' views too. You talked about the marine strategy directive that is being processed in Europe. I presume that you expect it to go through the same process of being transposed into Scottish law as the water framework directive. Do you see that as part of a consolidating marine bill or as something separate, and do you see SEPA as the lead agency? If we had a Scottish marine management organisation, would that body lead?
To a certain extent, we will have to wait to see what AGMACS comes up with, and I do not want to prejudge what has been a good debate in that group.
A lot of papers have suggested establishing a Scottish marine management organisation. If we had one, how would you work with it?
We are a little unsure about what it would look like and about the establishment of yet another body. We would like to explore further with the Scottish Executive the model of the competent authority for the water framework directive and how it can be taken forward. As I said earlier, the vast majority of issues in the 12 miles from the coast are land based, such as contamination, nutrients, chemicals coming down our rivers or erosion. I am sure that it would help developers and assist in finding simple solutions if a single integrated body dealt with such issues.
What do other witnesses think about the desirability of a Scottish marine management organisation? Is SEPA's view correct, or are there particular marine issues, including the issues that Chris Spray mentioned, that SEPA cannot deal with?
I have reflected further on the convener's question about where marine spatial planning and coastal zone management start and finish. There is a broader horizon to consider, in that we are talking about marine spatial planning that covers the entire 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone around Scotland—and beyond, if Europe has its way. There is a difficulty to do with the fact that, outwith the 12-nautical-mile limit, only fisheries are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. How does the United Kingdom manage issues outwith the 12-mile limit without encroaching on Scotland's devolved responsibility for fisheries? In that context, the management options are being explored—in governance terms—as we speak. The marine spatial planning process needs to cover the broader canvas and not just what happens in the 12-mile zone, therefore the requirement for a Scottish marine management organisation speaks for itself.
Is that the consensus view among the people who have been discussing the issue and AGMACS?
I cannot speak for AGMACS, because I do not sit on that body.
A theme that emerged from our discussion at last week's meeting was the need for a set of objectives for managing the marine environment. Is there a consensus on the objectives that we should have?
Such an approach would be valuable, because I think that we are all looking for a vision under which we can operate and play our key roles, so that the jigsaw puzzle is completed. An overarching objective at national level that takes on board the UK and European positions would be helpful. AGMACS and others have made a number of helpful suggestions that refer to biologically productive seas that are used sustainably, for the various activities that we have talked about, such as fisheries, aggregates, and inshore and marine fish farming. We can easily buy into a single vision, which would help to deliver better regulation and simplify the situation.
I agree that an overarching vision is necessary. To some extent, everything else will fall in behind it.
Significant constitutional and devolution issues need to be resolved, to determine the extent of our vision for the seas around Scotland beyond the 12-mile limit.
I dare say we will return to that point.
In response to a question from Elaine Smith, Chris Spray said that certain seabird species, in particular guillemots and razorbills, are being affected by a lack of sand eels. Have you been able to judge whether the lack of sand eels is the result of overfishing and industrial fishing or whether it has more to do with climate change?
You make a good point. It is obvious that you have read a lot of the scientific literature—I congratulate you. It was initially thought that sand eel losses were due to fishing, so the responsible response was to close the Wee Bankie sand eel fishery. However, as a result of work that was carried out, in particular by Professor Sarah Wanless and Professor Mike Harris, at the centre for ecology and hydrology at Banchory, it has been shown that the approach was masking environmental changes and that, as a result of changes in sea temperature, the sand eels' food is disappearing.
Thank you, gentlemen, for attending. We have enjoyed your evidence and we look forward to reviewing it in due course.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome the second panel of witnesses for today: Councillor Josie Simpson from Shetland Islands Council, who is representing the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; Michael Wright, who is the manager of the global connections department of Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire; Dr Derek McGlashan, who is the ports security and environment manager for the Scottish operation of Forth Ports plc; and Graham U'ren, who is the director of the Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland.
I have a couple of questions for Forth Ports, but it would be useful if the COSLA representative could also comment on the answers.
We clearly state that we have two hats, and it is important to emphasise that our primary objective is safety in navigation, which is our statutory function. The Department for Transport regulates that function and can rein us in if we deviate from ensuring safety of navigation.
However, you are structured as a plc, so you have a legal duty to your shareholders. Is that correct?
Yes, but we also have a statutory duty to ensure safety of navigation, which, as I said, is the overriding requirement.
To whom are you responsible on issues of environmental regulation? Are you directly responsible to ministers?
Again, the Department for Transport has placed a duty on all port and harbour authorities—some are public limited companies, some are local authorities and some are trusts—to ensure that conservation is given due regard in any decision. That is included in the Port Marine Safety Code, which is a relatively new initiative that the Department for Transport has developed over the past decade.
On environmental matters, Forth Ports is, in a sense, the regulatory body, because it is the competent authority under the habitats directive.
That is correct.
Does Forth Ports consider that unusual set-up, in which you have public, regulatory and private functions within a private limited company, to be a benefit or disbenefit to the company as a whole?
The way that we have been set up is the way that we have worked and we have not really considered whether it is a benefit or disbenefit. It is important to emphasise that the statutory functions fall within our marine department and are quite devolved from the company's commercial aspects. My remit is to perform an advisory function, so commercial aspects are not considered in my decision making. I provide advice to anyone in the organisation who requires it and that advice must be taken into account. The issue is primacy: if we have environmental or navigation responsibilities, they must be considered before commercial aspects are discussed.
The situation leaves Forth Ports open to criticisms that it is using regulatory functions to safeguard its primary legal duty as a plc, which is to its shareholders. Ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Forth have been commented on. In February, the committee will consider petitions that members of the public have submitted on that issue, but I will raise another example of the mismatch.
Do you have a date for that?
I do: it was 1994, I believe.
That is before I joined the company and it is the first that I have heard about the matter. If you wish, I am willing to speak to some of my colleagues to see whether I can find out a little more.
I am interested in whether COSLA perceives a conflict of interest in private companies holding what in many other countries are public regulatory functions that concern the protection of the marine environment.
Our experience in Shetland with Sullom Voe is that it is important to draw up a strong code of conduct. We worked closely with the oil industry when Sullom Voe terminal was established way back in the 1970s. That has worked well. We must have a code of conduct that is stuck to rigidly. That has made the environment a great success at Sullom Voe.
We are interested in exploring marine spatial planning, which has been mentioned—that involves integrated coastal zone management and so on. We have seen your submissions. We are interested in working out how local priorities would be set and stakeholders would be involved. It is interesting that ship-to-ship transfers have been raised; many other issues exist. How can planning for such activities take place in a fashion that protects the environment?
We do not have all the answers yet, because the idea of designing a marine spatial planning system has a long way to go and we can take it forward only one step at a time. We are not 100 per cent certain about the mechanisms to deal with some issues.
This is where integrated coastal zone management has had a poor run for the past 20 or so years. There is a theory that—a bit like marine spatial planning—ICZM started off as an excellent idea and pulled together the various organisations to come up with one overarching approach. However, the United Kingdom Government decided to take the voluntary approach. Although the approach—using local coastal partnerships or fora—worked in many ways, the main problem has been the lack of continuous funding for the partnerships or fora.
If I may, I will butt in for a minute. Last week, at our round-table session, it was suggested that Scotland has a lot of information—indeed, it was said that our knowledge of and ability to manage the seas may be seen as a benchmark. Does that not suggest that, rather than wait for someone else to do things, a Scottish solution might help others, at other levels and in other places, to put in place a good system?
Absolutely. I am not suggesting that we wait.
But you were.
It is one thing to come up with potential solutions and highlight the literature and work that has been done—
Just do not do anything.
It is quite another thing to put something in place when, in 18 months' time, we may be required to rewrite it substantially. The distinction needs to be made between that and the beneficial work that has been done.
We are not talking about charging ahead; we are trying to set up the process whereby aims that are stated at the Scottish level are applied in a process that involves people. Can the existing process be democratised? At the moment, instead of involving people in local communities, it sounds like a bunch of experts are telling people what they should think.
It is inevitable that, if a group of experts is asked what they think on a subject, they will give their academic, ivory-tower view of how something could work. It is important that we think about how things can work practically, on the ground. On that basis, I add my voice to the invitation that our chief executive made for every committee member to come to the Forth and Tay navigation service. We are more than willing for you to do so—in fact, we strongly encourage it. Such a visit would allow members to witness the way in which we safely manage the marine environment of a busy shipping estuary.
Thank you.
Maintaining local involvement is important. Many people compete for the same water inside the 12-mile zone, where fish farming takes place and there are shellfish. Over the years, we have frequently been able to resolve problems that have arisen when people have competed for the same piece of water. There must be local involvement.
We have not heard from Scottish Enterprise. Are your activities affected by the democratisation of planning?
Not directly, as we do not have any statutory planning responsibilities or powers.
As Mark Ruskell said, we will consider issues relating to Forth Ports and ship-to-ship oil transfers in the future, but we may not be fortunate enough to have somebody like Josie Simpson with us then. I want to probe a little further his thoughts on achieving safe and effective ship-to-ship oil transfers. People on Sullom Voe have a lot of experience of offloading oil into tanks, but do they have experience of ship-to-ship transfers in the sheltered waters there?
Yes. We carried out pilot schemes on the jetties on Sullom Voe around two years ago. Such work is slowly increasing—we are getting more of it—and we must go in that direction. The work should be carried out in controlled harbour waters where booms can be deployed immediately to contain spillages; that is not possible in the open sea. We must be strong on the issue and work inside controlled harbour waters.
There have been occasional spillages over the years from tankers offloading in Sullom Voe. What has been the impact of those spillages?
They have had a very limited impact. The precautions that are in place, which include booms and skimmers, mean that the environment in the port of Sullom Voe for the past 25 to 30 years has been a credit to that port. There are still otters there and the seaweed is in excellent condition. Ship-to-ship transfers must take place in a controlled environment in which any spillages can be taken care of.
If Forth Ports decided not to go ahead with the operation in the Forth, would people in Shetland welcome such an operation in Sullom Voe?
I think that we would, but we are not here to take away trade from the Firth of Forth. However, there is something that we can do: we have onshore tanks in which oil can be stored before it is moved into bigger tankers.
I want to return to basics. What is wrong with the current marine planning arrangements and licensing activities? What problems exist? That is probably a question for everybody, but perhaps the Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland could answer it first.
There is continual reporting of the need to resolve conflicting interests on an area basis—in one area as opposed to another—but the real value of spatial planning is in adding value in developing a system that is about not just mapping the constraints better, but sieving out areas where there are opportunities to develop and exploit resources in a sustainable way—areas where certain circumstances prevail and the environmental condition is more robust than it is in the areas where we want to constrain development.
In Shetland, part of our system for marine planning is a marine sub-committee that handles works licences in relation to fish farming and shellfish, which I think works very well. We can work closely with the inshore fishermen. I do not have a problem with the system that we have just now.
I reiterate a point that was made earlier: it is more about the opportunities than the constraints of the system. We do not have experience of the sharp end of implementation of projects. A practical example is renewable energy, particularly wave and tidal power. The question is whether we can use the planning regimes to be more proactive in promoting the opportunity that exists, not just to meet the needs of sustainable energy for Scotland but as a lever for economic growth.
I note from the Forth Ports submission that you are sceptical about the need for marine spatial planning. Do you acknowledge that, given the increased use of the marine environment that will result from renewable energy developments coming on stream, there might be a need for spatial planning?
There is always the potential for conflicts to arise between various activities, which we see in the coastal environment in particular—hence our submission's focus on the coastal environment rather than the offshore area. It is important to remember that there is an element of marine spatial planning of the offshore area, such as of oil and gas, through Westminster, and of fisheries, through the common fisheries policy. Whether you agree with the outcome is another issue.
The consensus seems to be that if we were to go for marine spatial planning, we should be looking for opportunities. You seemed to be talking about an overarching thing. Are you talking about a national UK organisation or a Scottish organisation? In the Scottish context, who would you see taking that on, or are we talking about creating a new organisation?
That is a key question, but I am not sure that we are quite ready to answer it. I refer back to Derek McGlashan's point. The issue about the dynamism of the marine environment points strongly to a need to establish a much wider planning unit. That is where some of the issues about the scope of the ICZM partnerships conducting marine spatial planning at a local level come in. With the best will in the world, those partnerships cannot have an overview that is wide enough to encompass some of the ecosystem-wide dynamic issues to which Derek McGlashan referred. That is why much of the work that has been done so far to establish an administrative unit for planning has focused strongly on what is called the regional sea dimension.
I ask Graham U'ren to expand on the practicalities of that, as he sees them. I suppose that the model is the old structure plan and local plan, but in this case the top level would be UK-wide and the lower levels would be Scotland-wide and local. Do you think that that would work in practice?
The practicalities of getting a properly integrated approach to a spatial plan for a regional sea involve an accommodation with the UK Government the like of which we have not seen so far. That is of no surprise to me, as our profession has been debating how we can deal with UK-wide spatial issues. We cannot get away from them—they are there anyway.
As you say, that is a challenge.
We have talked about how the planning process might work with its various layers and structures. Let us think about the objectives, what the planning process wants us to do and what our priorities are. We spoke about democratisation and how people at local level could feed into the process. Does anyone have any indication that people at local level know what the priorities are for the marine environment? What do you see as the priorities? Are they economic or concerned with biodiversity? Does Councillor Simpson have a view on that?
The priority is commercial, but it is also environmental. We work closely with SNH on our shellfish control and on works licences. It is important that we have local involvement because local people know both sides of the argument. We all have to be interested in our environment. I spoke earlier about the port of Sullom Voe, on which we worked very closely with the industry. The same applies in this situation: we have to work closely with the aquaculture, fishing and shellfish industries. Commercial and environmental interests share priority.
Dr McGlashan, what about the Forth estuary fora? Does your membership have views on what the priorities are?
It is fair to say that each member has their own priorities. Obviously, as on many of the different fora, the membership is made up of the harbour authorities, the local authorities, other statutory agencies such as Scottish Natural Heritage, and some of the non-governmental organisations such as RSPB Scotland and wildlife trusts.
If the other two panellists have nothing to add on that subject, is it the case that there is consensus about our objectives for the marine environment?
I underline the point that was made at the outset: the priority is to get the balance right between environmental issues and opportunities for economic development. The planning system will need to be part of the strategy but it will certainly not be the whole strategy. Many other aspects of a marine coastal strategy need to be developed.
I thank the witnesses for coming. Your evidence was much appreciated.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
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