Licensing
WHILE SOME LICENSING ARRANGEMENTS appear to work, the Seabed User & Developer Group has firsthand experience of the failings of many consenting regimes.
These can be overly complex, with overlapping responsibilities between regulators and insufficient clarity or consistency.
The absence of clear, overarching policy objectives causes confusion and results in delays that waste time and resources for industry and regulators alike.
Against a background of widely shared concern about the regulatory processes that exist, we believe that rationalisation and improvement of regulation, licensing and other approvals is an absolute prerequisite for the success of the Marine Bill.
We welcome the Bill’s commitment to deliver better regulation, and believe there should be greater emphasis on consistency, plus a more proportional approach to regulation based on the risk and significance of the activity being regulated.
This would see low-risk activities subject to a “lighter touch”. The effectiveness of any regulatory process is as dependent on the systems that deliver it as it is on the regulation itself. Therefore, the mechanisms to implement the regulations will be equally important in delivering the desire for better regulation.
This will require clear guidance to be produced for regulators and applicants alike, and represents an opportunity to deliver greater consistency across industry environmental impact assessment processes by drawing upon existing good practices as a model.
