Draft Fisheries Assessment – Stanton Bank Reef SAC: Fisheries management measures within Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

4 Part C Assessment – In-combination assessment

4.1 In-combination assessment overview

This section assesses the in-combination provision under Article 6(3) of Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora (the Habitats Directive) to take account of the cumulative impacts, which may occur over space and time, in relation to plans or projects which are completed, approved but uncompleted, or proposed. Activities assessed in this section include the following:

• Fishing activity/pressure combinations which were excluded in Part A of this assessment as having no likely significant impact;
• Fishing interactions assessed in Part B but not resulting in adverse effects; and
• Plans and projects occurring within Stanton Banks SAC that are not related to fishing.

Fishing activities including demersal trawls and demersal seines have been identified in Part B as requiring management to avoid adverse effects to site integrity and will therefore not be considered in Part C. Static fishing using traps was not considered to have an adverse effect on site integrity on its own and is assessed in combination with other plans or projects occurring at the site in Part C.

4.2 Other offshore region activities screening

To determine plans and projects not related to fishing activities to be included within this part of the assessment, a distance of 5 km was selected as suitable to capture any potential source receptor pathways that could impact the site in combination with effects of the fishing activities assessed. A 5 km buffer was therefore applied to the site boundary to identify relevant plans and projects.

Plans and projects not related to fishing activities were identified using the Scottish Government’s marine mapping tool. Resources on the JNCC Site Information Centre for Stanton Banks SAC were also screened for activities occurring in the site that should be considered in the in-combination assessment.

The map to display offshore region activities (see Figure 5) was derived from OceanWise’s Marine Themes Vector data (July 2023 version), Crown Estate Scotland leases (September 2023 version), Kingfisher Information Services Offshore Renewable Cable Awareness (KIS-ORCA, as of December 2023 held under licence) and the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA, as of December 2023, data held under Oil and Gas Authority open licence). The Marine Themes “Industrial” was filtered to show offshore region platforms, wellheads, piles, turbines, cables, and pipelines. Features marked as “not in use”, “not present”, “decommissioned”, or “removed” were excluded. The “Administrative” data were filtered to only show military exercise areas which included danger areas.

4.3 Other offshore region activities occurring with Stanton Banks SAC

The screening exercise using the Scottish Government’s marine mapping tool did not identify any current cables, pipelines, turbines or piles, wellheads, or offshore region platforms within the site (see Figure 5). The Stanton Banks SAC sits within the Northern Fleet Exercise Area, with the majority of the site covered by the Hebrides surface or firing area (torpedo exercise area, firing danger area, and surface danger area).

The JNCC Site Information Centre for Stanton Banks SAC confirmed that 'licensable' activities such as oil and gas exploration and production do not currently (as at 2017) take place within Stanton Banks SAC.

4.4 Potential pressures exerted by fishing and other plans or projects

The military danger area that overlaps with the majority of the site is a surface or firing danger area and was not considered able to impact the seafloor reef feature.

4.5 Significance of effects/impacts to protected features

None of the other offshore region activities occurring within the Stanton Banks SAC exerted pressures on the reef feature that would overlap with the pressures exerted by static demersal fishing (traps/creels). Subsequently, there were no likely significant effects identified within the in-combination assessment. Considering the absence of likely significant effects, the assessment did not identify any in-combination activities that could adversely affect the site integrity of Stanton Banks SAC.

4.6 Part C Conclusion

Scottish Ministers conclude that the remaining fishing activities (demersal static gear: traps/creels) in-combination with other relevant activities are compatible with the conservation objectives of the site and will not adversely affect the site integrity of Stanton Banks SAC, at current levels of activity.