Marine Plans: three-year reports
Source: gov.uk (2025-06-30)

The Three-Year Reports assess the legislative and regulatory changes that may affect the relevance of the North East, North West, South East, South West and South Marine Plans (the Plans).

On 30 June 2025 the following five Three-Year Reports were published by Defra on gov.uk:
- The first Three-Year Report on the North East Inshore and North East Offshore Marine Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/north-east-inshore-and-north-east-offshore-marine-plan-three-year-report)
- The first Three-Year Report on the North West Inshore and North West Offshore Marine Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/north-west-inshore-and-north-west-offshore-marine-plan-three-year-report)
- The first Three-Year Report on the South East Inshore Marine Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/south-east-inshore-marine-plan-three-year-report)
- The first Three-Year Report on the South West Inshore and North West Offshore Marine Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/south-west-inshore-and-south-west-offshore-marine-plan-three-year-report)
- The second Three-Year Report on the South Inshore and South Offshore Marine Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/south-inshore-and-south-offshore-marine-plan-three-year-report)
The North East, North West, South East and South West Marine Plans were adopted in June 2021 and the South Marine Plan was adopted in July 2018. The first Three-Year Report on the South Inshore and South Offshore Marine Plan was published in July 2021 and recommended that the plan be retained.

The Three-Year Reports assess the legislative and regulatory changes that may affect the relevance of the North East, North West, South East, South West and South Marine Plans (the Plans). The Three-Year Reports also evaluated if, and how, the Plans and their policies are being used, and the effects and effectiveness of the policies within each Plan. The effects of policies were used to inform the assessment of progress made towards securing the objectives of the Plans and contribution towards the high-level marine objectives (HLMOs).

During the reporting period (2021 to 2024), there have been legislative and policy changes, such as the publication of the British Energy Security Strategy and the Environment Act 2021, and the updating of National Policy Statements. Yet, the Plans remain relevant and broadly aligned with national and local priorities. Greater contextual changes that may impact marine planning will likely come from the outputs of the Marine Spatial Prioritisation Programme, the development of the replacement East Marine Plan, the Winser Review, and the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan. Excluding the Winser Review, which was published after monitoring was complete, the outputs of these projects are not yet available. Therefore, the extent of the context change cannot be determined within these Three-Year Reports.

The Three-Year Reports conclude that progress has been made toward embedding the Plans within planning and consenting processes. Training will continue to be provided to MMO teams and external decision-makers to ensure that decisions continue to be made in accordance with section 58 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. Further work is also required to increase early consideration of the Plans by proponents and other decision-makers.

The Three-Year Reports also identify that although progress is being made towards securing the HLMOs, a proportion of policies within the Plans yielded inconclusive findings. Further time is required to allow for data lags and to be able to assess the effects and effectiveness of the policies within the Plans. At the time of data collection, only two years had passed since the North East, North West, South East and South West Marine Plans were adopted. The second Three-Year Report on the South Marine Plan revealed that the largest proportion of policies reported positive effects, resulting in the Plan showing positive progress towards five plan objectives. After two monitoring periods, the South Marine Plan has demonstrated its ongoing utility for sustainable development at sea.

Following consideration of the Three-Year Reports, Emma Hardy, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Water and Flooding at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs agreed with the MMO’s recommendation that the North East, North West, South East, South West and South Marine Plans are to be retained and not amended at this time.

The reports were developed under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government. Whilst the reports show that the marine plans remain broadly aligned with existing legislation, there may be aspects of the reports which may not fully reflect current government policy.

If you have any comments or questions, please get in touch with the Marine Planning team at xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx).