C-SCOPE

The 2012 Olympic Games present an opportunity to develop a maritime legacy that will benefit Dorset's coastal communities and the maritime sector long into the future. The DCF has developed the C-SCOPE (combining sea and coastal planning in Europe) project to realise this potential.

C-SCOPE project update - December 2011

Draft C-SCOPE Marine Plan Consultation

You are invited to comment on the Draft C-SCOPE Marine Plan. Your feedback is particularly important as this is a pilot project which could help to inform national marine planning. The Draft C-SCOPE Marine Plan is a non-statutory plan which aims to provide users, managers and regulators of the marine plan area, whether in public, private or voluntary sectors, with direction, policies and advice to ensure that their plans and activities contribute to sustainable development in the area. While the Plan should be taken as a whole, it is also intended to be complementary to existing plans and strategies. It seeks to avoid duplication as far as possible but does sign-post users to other relevant plans and strategies where they overlap.

Additionally there is an aspiration that the C-SCOPE Marine Plan will become a material consideration for local planning and regulatory authorities when making decisions on new applications for development, and eventually be given some statutory recognition through incorporation into local plans and national marine plans when they are developed.

The Draft Marine Plan, appendices and supporting documents for your comment are all available to download from the Draft C-SCOPE Marine Plan Consultation webpage (opens in a new window)

The consultation period is twelve weeks, and you are asked to respond by Friday the 9th of March 2012. We welcome all comments, positive or negative.

Please download the response document, and either return it with your comments via email or post to Ness Smith using the contact details at the bottom of this page. If using email, please use the subject title "Draft C-SCOPE Marine Plan Consultation Response"

Once the consultation is complete, all comments will be considered and the Marine Plan amended where necessary, this will then be published on the C-SCOPE website. (opens in a new window) .

iCoast website launched

The iCoast website (opens in a new window) , one of the three key deliverables of the C-SCOPE project, was launched on 26^th May 2011 at the Spring DCF Meeting where the theme for the day was coastal and marine recreation. Robert Gould, Dorset County Council Environment Portfolio Holder/ Leader of West Dorset District Council officially made iCoast available to all.

iCoast has been created by the DCF working with specialist website map developers One Bright Space. iCoast enables visitors and residents to plan a wide range of water sports and coastal activities in Dorset. Whether you are a kayaker, sailor, surfer, climber, sea angler, scuba diver or walker, the site is a mine of useful information. It covers everything from slipways to cycle routes to hire shops - you can even check real-time weather, tidal and current information and sea conditions.

DCF/C-SCOPE Conference: Socio-economic aspects of coastal and marine planning

This conference was held at The Lifeboat college, Poole on 19 November 2010. The first session of the conference included an update on the work of the Dorset Coast Forum, presentations on the Wreck to Reef project and Logistics for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Sailing events in Weymouth and Portland. The second session of the conference focused on the socio economic aspects of marine planning looking at trade offs in the marine environment. to view the conference presentations and read the conference notes please visit the Socio-economic aspects of coastal and marine planning conference webpage.

C-SCOPE Community roadshows

Residents were invited to see the Dorset coast as they've never seen it before at a series of C-SCOPE Marine Planning Roadshows about the future of our marine environment. The Dorset Coast Forum hosted six events at towns and villages between Portland and Purbeck to involve local people in the C-SCOPE project. The C-SCOPE Community Road Show has now ended. 160+ local residents attended the C-SCOPE Community roadshow events. The C-SCOPE Team are very grateful to everyone who mapped their activity and wrote down their vision for the Dorset coast in 2030, the information gathered from those who attended the events will be very useful for the development of the marine plan and other project components.

Land and Seascape Assessment Completed

LDA Design have completed the Land and Seascape Assessment of the Dorset Coast which will feed into the C-SCOPE project. This study has determined the visual capacity of Dorset's coastal environment to accommodate offshore renewables and other coastal infrastructure without negatively affecting landscape/seascape quality and experience. LDA adopted a ground-breaking approach to seascape characterisation, defining units by sectoral uses in addition to Zones of Visual Influence. To view the final document visit: Land and Seascape Assessment webpage

Offshore Renewable Energy Capacity Study Completed

Royal Haskoning has now completed the Offshore Renewable Energy Capacity Study for the Dorset Coast. The aim of this study was to deliver GIS layers indicating appropriate and inappropriate areas for offshore renewable energy developments, and will be another evidence source for policy decision making. The report can be downloaded at: Dorset Offshore Renewable Capacity Study (pdf, 1Mb) (opens in a new window)

Task and finish groups

To help progress work in the key C-SCOPE project areas and involve key stakeholders in project decisions, the C-SCOPE team has set up four task and finish groups in the following areas:

Coastal Explorer Planning
Coastal Explorer Interactive
Marine Spatial Planning (MSP)
Communications

All task and finish group meetings minutes can be found at www.cscope.eu (opens in a new window) .

Interactions Matrix

The C-SCOPE Team have been completing an interactions matrix, interviewing stakeholders to capture information on the nature, extent and intensity of interactions among sectors within the C-SCOPE Marine Management Area now, and as predicted to develop over the coming 5 years. The main output will be a matrix summarising the nature and significance of interactions among sectors. This will be supported by maps and text detailing significant interactions and will be used in the development of sectoral plans and their integration within the C-SCOPE Marine Spatial Plan.

Seabed mapping

A comprehensive seabed map of the area, carried out in conjunction with Dorset Wildlife Trust, has been completed. More about the Seabed Mapping Project can be found at Dorset Wildlife Trust Doris Map (opens in a new window) . The DORIS Map can be seen in Google Earth at DORIS Map in Google Earth (opens in a new window) website.

Marine Spatial Plan

The C-SCOPE Team is developing policy for the Marine Plan and a tender is now out to conduct a Sustainability Appraisal for the Marine Plan.

Coastal Explorer Planning tool

Over 270 GIS data sets have been collected for the Coastal Explorer Planning tool and a pilot will be demonstrated at the Marine Spatial Planning Conference.

C-SCOPE Marine Spatial Planning Conference

The C-SCOPE MSP Conference was held on Monday 19th and 20th October 2009. The conference realised its aim of building on existing knowledge by bringing together international, national and local speakers to explore the theory, practice and future of MSP. We are very grateful for the positive and constructive feedback from delegates and for the excellent presentations given by speakers at the conference. To view speaker presentations, minutes and additional material from this conference please visit the C-SCOPE Marine Spatial Planning Conference 2009 page.

C-SCOPE website

The C-SCOPE project has it's very own website. Please visit the C-SCOPE website (opens in a new window) for up to date information about this project and minutes from recent C-SCOPE meetings. A brief background and information regarding funders and the UK Steering Group can be found below.

C-SCOPE background

Dorset's coastal communities and maritime sector will benefit from a lasting legacy to the London 2012 Olympic Games following a successful bid for €1.8 million in European funding to deliver an innovative marine planning project.

On November 17 2008 the Dorset Coast Forum received confirmation of the success of our Interred bid which will help to fund the C-SCOPE project. Interred is a community initiative which aims to stimulate interregional co-operation in the European Union. It started in 1989 and is financed under the European Regional Development Fund (EDF).

C-SCOPE, which stands for Combining Sea and Coastal Planning in Europe, has been developed by the forum and its partners, the Belgian Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) Coordination Centre (opens in a new window) , to build on Dorset's role as the host of the 2012 Olympic sailing events. It aims to provide the county with economic, social and environmental benefits well into the future.

This comprehensive project will help to manage the many current and future pressures facing the Dorset coast, from new development and climate change to competition for space between interests such as shipping, commercial fishing, recreation and renewable energy.

C-SCOPE is supported by the following funders:

The C-SCOPE Steering Group:

The C-SCOPE Steering Group is a non-statutory, non-executive advisory committee which provides strategic overview of the C-SCOPE Project. The Steering Group Terms of Reference (PDF, 50kb) (opens in a new window) specify the aims and membership of the Dorset Coast Forum C-SCOPE Project Steering Group.

C-SCOPE Marine Spatial Planning Conference 2009
The C-SCOPE Marine Spatial Planning Conference held on 19th and 20th October 2009 at Portland Heights Hotel, Isle of Portland, Dorset, UK built on our existing knowledge by bringing together international, national and local speakers who will explore the theory, practice and future of MSP.
Land and Seascape Assessment
C-SCOPE Marine Planning Roadshows
Residents were invited to see the Dorset coast as they've never seen it before at a series of roadshows about the future of our marine environment. The Dorset Coast Forum hosted six events at towns and villages between Portland and Purbeck to involve local people in a marine planning project called C-SCOPE (Combining Sea and Coastal Planning in Europe).