Request:
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What due diligence / impact assessment was undertaken by Crown Estate Scotland before granting an exclusivity agreement to OSG and
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how did this decision meet Crown Estate Scotland’s Biodiversity Duty and purpose to protect and improve our marine environment?
Response:
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An exclusivity agreement is an early stage agreement. It places a hold on a specific area for a fixed period of time. During that time Crown Estate Scotland will not enter similar agreements with others over the same area of seabed. It does not guarantee that a long term lease will be signed. It does not grant full development rights to an area.
If a developer subsequently decides to submit a formal consent application, this proposal would be subject to the usual comprehensive process of Scottish Government regulators and local authority review before any lease could be considered.
At this stage no impact assessments have been undertaken. This would happen later in the process as a requirement of any marine licence application. Standard internal processes were followed for the award of this exclusivity agreement.
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As above, this is an early stage agreement and details of the proposed project are not yet known. If the developer decides to submit a formal consent application then an Environmental Impact Assessment would form a part of their application. Crown Estate Scotland would only grant a lease if all regulatory consents were in place.
Crown Estate Scotland takes a wide range of actions in relation to biodiversity across our Estate. You can access our statutory biodiversity reporting on our website: Reporting | Crown Estate Scotland. This report is undertaken every three years.
