Enhancing Stakeholder Engagement in Marine Planning

The Solent Forum, and other coastal partnerships around the country, worked with the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) on a project to Enhance Stakeholder Engagement in the marine planning process. The Solent lies within the areas covered by the South Marine Plans. The project covered the period 2017 to 2020. 

Project objectives:

• Improve Stakeholder Contacts Database
• Produce Behavioural Analysis Report
• Revise Communications and Engagement Plans
• Produce new materials to support communications and engagement
• Deliver (with coastal partnerships) workshops and other activities to engage hard-to-reach stakeholders in marine planning
• Deliver (with coastal partnerships) workshops and other activities to enhance engagement of stakeholders in cross-border marine planning

Project Tasks

The project asked for three main tasks and the Solent Forum undertook the following:

1. Stakeholder engagement workshop - see below
2. Pilot of how to best work with a recreational user group (RYA) to get information on marine plans to recreational users
3. An animation of how marine plans work and how they are relevant to coastal stakeholders, in association with the Devon Maritime Forum and the Dorset Coast Forum - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOXyLKaWSuU&feature=youtu.be.

The project was managed by the national MMO marine planning team and was funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund.

Enhancing Stakeholder Engagement (ESE) Workshop - 10 October 2018

The Solent Forum, working in partnership with the MMO, hosted a workshop with Solent stakeholders on 10 October 2018, discussing how we can enhance stakeholder engagement in the implementation of and monitoring of the newly adopted South Marine Plans.

The final workshop report that sets out the findings is available to download.

Presentations 

• Introducing the ESE workshop and the workshop tasks (Solent Forum)
• South Marine Plan: Where are we now (MMO)
• Implementation of the South Marine Plan (MMO)
• Workshop Agenda

The main objectives of the Enhancing Stakeholder Engagement project were to:

• Work with local coastal partnerships to expand the MMO's current database of stakeholders with an interest in the marine area and gain insights into their drivers and motivations to engage in planning
• Engage more with stakeholders, more effectively to strengthen marine plans and their implementation and monitoring
• Allow development of enhanced communication plans, especially to access hard to reach stakeholders
• Develop tools and activities to identify opportunities to raise awareness, and deliver enhanced "outreach" engagement to all stakeholders including those new and ‘hard to reach’ stakeholders who are not currently meaningfully engaged in the marine planning process
• Enable the MMO to expand its reach adding value to marine plans 
• Hold a range of workshops, develop appropriate materials and deploy other mechanisms, throughout the marine planning process in more ways and at more times and locations in order to secure more comprehensive engagement across all stakeholder groups