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The fact that Government could have adopted a logical approach to designation has been shown by the work done to select the Marine Environmental High Risk Areas suggested by Lord Donaldson in his report after the “Braer” accident (MEHRAs) .
He argued that these areas should be identified, with suitable measures to direct high risk ships. The Department of Transport commissioned a detailed study that endeavoured to set up a logical and quantified process for site selection. The result is an impressive document, still available on the government website. It goes through all the risk factors, and identifies the attributes that need protection, Moreover, it recognises that the way in which the various factors are weighted to reach a conclusion is subjective – i.e. it is the selection of the weighting factors that reflects a genuine political assessment and choice – but it is choice made on the basis of informed, quantified assessment. Moreover, because it is subjective but explicit, it is open to discussion and genuine debate.
What a pity this did not happen for European Marine Sites such as the Solent. What we got instead was a process of site selection that was essentially subjective, backed up with pseudo-science. Moreover the UK approach was entirely different to that used throughout the rest of Europe, resulting in all kinds of EuroBabble!
The importance of this lack of a clear scientific basis is that there is no scientific baseline from which rational debate can take place. If the reason is that the data has not yet been collected, then acceptance that the designation is based on subjective expert judgement would allow the debate to take place on that level. Nothing wrong with that.
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