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Any project in the coastal zone, especially the intertidal area, is deemed to be significant. This can go right down to a new slipway or hard for launching dinghies from a small yacht club.
Even where a site is not designated but is near a designated site, there is a reluctance to see any development, usually on the grounds that the birds from the designated areas may need to use the site to feed. Taken to its logical conclusion, this means that one might as well have designated the whole area. It is a form of the Whitehall Loop that the consenting bodies and their advisers, English Nature decide when this is important and when it is not. However, the argument that the birds “may need to use the site” is effectively inventing ‘hypothetical consequences’, which is specifically ruled out as inappropriate in the guidance on the Habitats Regulations relating to the precautionary principle.
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