Guidance to help you successfully complete a marine licence application
This guidance can be used to assist your completion of a standard marine licence application within the MMO’s Marine Case Management System MCMS.
How to use
- This should be used alongside other guidance pages such as make a marine licence application.
- This guidance relates to the “When you apply” part of the marine licence application timeline.
- This guidance aims to help you complete applications that are fit for purpose, reduce the need of updates to the application and to enable the MMO to validate and process your application efficiently. Once your application is ‘validated’ the MMO aim to make a decision within 13 weeks.
General guidance
- You should register for an online account for the MCMS prior to making an application.
- Before we accept your application, if it is determined that further information is required to support your application, we will refuse to proceed with your application whilst providing details of what is required and how the application should be resubmitted.
- MCMS has a file size limit of 50mb. Any documents larger than this must be split prior to upload.
- Within many sections of the application, you have the option to upload a file. Please note, if you are uploading a file, you must provide a summary within each text box of the relevant section, otherwise your application may be rejected.
Project summary
Additional application types
If you are applying for a standard marine licence and another application type listed, you must tick the correct box. If you don’t then it may delay the processing of your application. If you are applying for another application type, please provide relevant supporting information where indicated.
Related consents and applications
If you have had prior contact with the MMO regarding your project, please ensure ‘Yes’ is selected where indicated. Please also provide any case references and the names of any MMO case workers to make finding previous cases and correspondence easier. Additionally, documents can be uploaded using the ‘Upload a file’ option.
If your application has any other consents issued for example planning permission from a local council, please select ‘Yes’ where indicated and provide the relevant information.
Assessments
The marine licence application form asks for details on how certain assessments have been considered. If you have completed your own assessments please indicate this here. If you consider that these assessments do not apply to your application, please provide your justification for this in the relevant section of the application form:
- Environmental Impact Assessment
- Habitats Regulations Assessment
- Marine Conservation Zone Assessment
- Sites of Special Scientific Interest
- Water Framework Directive compliance assessment
If you aren’t sure whether these assessments apply, further information is provided on the following MMO webpage:
Marine licensing: Information you may need to supply to support your marine licence application
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
If you select ‘Yes’ to this question, please ensure you provide any EIA case references previously submitted within MCMS. If an Environmental Statement has been produced for the project it must be attached here.
Water Framework Directive (WFD)
You must complete a WFD assessment for any application up to 1 nautical mile out to sea and attach this assessment to the relevant section within the MCMS application form. Even if you feel that you do not need to carry out WFD screening, scoping or impact assessment, you should select ‘Yes’ and provide sufficient detail as to why you feel further consideration isn’t necessary.
Other assessments
Regarding other assessments such as Marine Conservation Zone or Site of Special Scientific Interest, you may feel that you do not need to provide an assessment due to project scale, location or other factors. You should however still answer with ‘Yes’ to the relevant question, in order to summarise to the MMO why you do not wish to provide further information or considerations.
Licence summary
The licence summary section of the application asks whether you consider the application would qualify for the accelerated licensing process for dredging?
Please only select ‘Yes’ to the question around ‘accelerated licensing process for dredging’ if the criteria outlined within the below has been met:
Accelerated licensing for dredging
If the MMO assess the application and believe it does not meet the criteria, then this will be changed to ‘No’.
You are then required to enter proposed licence start and end dates.
Please note the MMO aim to make a decision on 90% of marine licence applications within 13 weeks of validation. This should be considered when selecting a proposed start date. You should consider the length of time needed for the licence and indicate a proposed licence end date. When assessing your application, the MMO will confirm the start and end dates.
Site locations
It is very important that accurate mapping and coordinate details are provided so that the MMO can accurately assess the location of your application with any sensitivities nearby. To add a site to your application, you can upload a number of mapping file types which are listed within the application form. Alternatively, you can add sites manually, using co-ordinates in a range of systems. A more detailed explanation can be found in the following video:
Marine Case Management System - Coordinates
Please note if entering co-ordinates manually, you are able to select ‘Point’, ‘Area’ or ‘Line’. Unless you have already prepared very precise location data, you should select ‘Area’ and create a polygon so that the full extent of the works are accounted for.
Adding an activity
Once you have successfully added a site or sites to your application, you are required to provide details on the activities to take place within those sites. Details required include:
- Activity title
- Activity description
- Activity methodology
- Activity start and end date
- Activity programme
- Potential impacts
- Proposed mitigation
- Residual risks
- Any additional information
- Use intended to be made of the works
In these sections you will be presented with a text box as well as an option to upload a file. If you prefer to upload a file please provide a summary in the text box. Please also signpost to any relevant sections of the documentation you feel are appropriate.
Other details
Fees and charges
You are required to enter an approximate cost of the project prior to submitting your application. Please ensure this is as accurate as possible, as the project cost is used when assessing the application to determine the appropriate fee banding.
Please note that if any part of the Billing details you provide are inaccurate or incomplete, the MMO may charge an administration fee of £57 (plus VAT) to re-issue an invoice. If you are unsure of your organisation’s correct billing details, please refer to your Accounts Payable team.
Your organisation may also require a Purchase Order to feature on invoices they receive. If this applies to your organisation, please only accept the estimate on your application once you can provide a Purchase Order. Failure to provide a valid Purchase Order reference when your organisation requires one, may result in your application being stopped or incurring additional administration fees.