Draft Fisheries Assessment – Turbot Bank NCMPA: Fisheries management measures within Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

4. Part C Assessment – In Combination Assessment

Part C of this assessment considers the cumulative impacts, which may occur over space and time, in relation to activities occurring within the MPA. Activities assessed in this section include the following:

• Fishing activity/pressure combinations which were excluded in Part A of this assessment as not being capable of impacting the feature
• Fishing interactions assessed in Part B that would not hinder the conservation objectives for the site; and
• Activities occurring within Turbot Bank NCMPA that are not related to fishing.

Fishing activities including demersal trawls, demersal seines, and boat dredges have been identified in Part B as requiring management and will therefore not be considered in Part C.

It was not considered, however, that pelagic fishing hinder the achievement of the conservation objectives for the site on their own so they are assessed in combination with other activities occurring at the site in this Part C.

4.1 In-combination assessment overview

4.1.1 Other offshore region activities screening

To determine activities 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 activities.

Activities not related to fishing activities were identified using the Scottish Government’s marine mapping tool. Resources on the JNCC Site Information Centre for Turbot Bank MPA, including the JNCC Turbot Bank MPA: Management Options Paper (2014), 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 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.

4.1.2 Other offshore region activities occurring within Turbot Bank MPA

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 (Figure 6).

There are no current licenced oil and gas production areas. Within the NCMPA there was one licensed oil and gas production area (known as a license 'block' as identified by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy) and two, as-yet-unlicensed blocks, however these blocks may no longer be available or present. The site may be subject to further oil and gas development in the future.

There is also an Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) area within 5 km of the site. This is an area where projects targeting oil and gas decarbonisation will be considered however there are currently no proposed activities, or infrastructure in place for this site.

A gas pipeline crosses within 5 km of the site, it was not possible to discern whether this is an active pipeline or proposed. Due to the proximity of the pipeline and the localised nature of any associated maintenance activity, this was not considered as requiring further assessment.

The site also borders the Mara Mhor Offshore Wind Farm. This project is for a 798 MW floating turbine windfarm and is at an early stage having being awarded seabed rights in 2022. Geotechnical surveys are due to commence in 2024 and will be subject to the relevant assessments and licensing.

These finding align with the Activities and Management section of the JNCC Site Information Centre for Turbot Bank MPA and the Turbot Bank MPA Management Options Paper, which indicate that there are no other activities currently occurring within the site.

4.2 Potential pressures exerted by fishing and other activities

The offshore region wind lease bordering the site does not intersect with the site and no infrastructure is in place. Subsequently there are currently no pressures exerted with the potential to interact with the protected features of the site. Similarly, for the INTOG area to the north, and oil and gas license block, as no infrastructure is place, there are no pressures to be considered at present.

Although the JNCC Site Information Centre for Turbot Bank NCMPA indicates there is low density of commercial shipping in the area, vessel anchorage is unlikely; thus the pressures associated with shipping activity within Turbot Bank NCMPA are not considered likely to impact the features within the site.

4.3 Significance of effects/impact to protected features

There were no offshore region activities occurring within, or within 5 km of Turbot Bank NCMPA that would exert pressures that could overlap with those exerted by pelagic fishing and demersal mobile fishing gear, and to which sandeel are sensitive (Table 3).

Subsequently, there are no in-combination effects that are considered to hinder maintaining favourable condition for the sandeel feature of Turbot Bank MPA, so that the quality and quantity of its habitat and the composition of its population are such that they ensure that the population is maintained in numbers which enable it to thrive.

4.4 Part C conclusion

Scottish Ministers conclude that the remaining fishing activities (pelagic, demersal mobile and demersal static fishing) at current activity levels in-combination with other relevant activities will not hinder the achievement of the conservation objectives for Turbot Bank NCMPA.