GovWire

Application

On 20 February 2015 PD Teesport submitted an application to the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) for a marine licence to continue to undertake disposal of dredged material from maintenance dredging of navigable channels and berths within The Tees and Hartlepool. The application was for a disposal volume of up to a maximum of 2,889,700 tonnes wet weight per year. PD Teesport is a statutory harbour authority and applies the exemption within Section 75 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 relating to dredging activities. As such, the marine licence applied for did not include the dredging activities themselves.

Initial Licence

Following a full consultation process, the licence was granted on 30 December 2015 and will expire on 31 December 2025. The licence contained conditions within it including a requirement for mid licence sampling in 3 yearly intervals, a maximum disposal allowance of 2,889,700 tonnes wet weight to Tees Bay A disposal site per annum, and exclusion of material for certain dredge areas for disposal to sea.

Variations 1 & 2

Variations 1 and 2 were carried out by MMO in early 2019 in order to bring the returns requirement onto the MMOs new online system. These were internal administrative variations that did not change any context for the licence.

Variation 3

In September 2019 the MMO varied the marine licence in order to add additional conditions to the licence. The first condition removed an area around Billingham Reach for disposal to sea due to high contaminant results in that area following mid licence sampling. The second proposed condition restricted further dredging in the area of the Northern Gateway Container Terminal until further sampling had been carried out and reviewed as further samples were needed to be collected for the area to ensure sufficient spatial coverage. This second condition was not required at the point of determination of the variation request, as the applicant provided further sampling evidence which was consulted with Cefas before the variation was determined.

Variation 4

Following variation 3, further sediment sampling and analysis was subsequently carried out within the Billingham Reach by the applicant. The applicant requested variation 4 to consider if the material in the Billingham Reach area was suitable for disposal to sea and therefore that the variation would remove the restriction placed. Following consultation with Cefas, the MMO determined that this sampling demonstrated the area was suitable for disposal to sea and the condition was removed from the varied licence.

Variation 5

This variation was requested by the applicant in August 2020 as they were proposing to undertake a dredge of the navigation channel within the Tees estuary to locally deepen the channel from a depth of an advertised 5.1m below Chart Datum (bCD) (as detailed within the Tees Maintenance Dredging Protocol (MDP) baseline document and its annual updates) to a maximum depth of 5.7m bCD.

The licensed disposal quantity on L/2015/00427/4 would not be exceeded by the proposed disposal, in addition to the fact that the licence does not licence the dredge activities themselves. Additional sampling was undertaken at depth and Cefas were consulted, agreeing that material was suitable for disposal to sea. The MMO granted the variation in April 2021.

Variation 6

An admin error on the licence was identified such that volume quantities on the licence were listed as less than what was on the licence and permitted under condition 5.2.7. The licence application was assessed against the volumes of 2,889,700 tonnes wet weight per year, and the condition 5.2.7 demonstrated the continued permission for disposal of these volumes. Disposal volumes have typically averaged around 1 million tonnes across the length of the licence. To ensure continued compliance under OSPAR requirements for sampling, an additional condition was placed on the varied licence by the MMO such that additional sampling would be required should disposal volumes go beyond 1 million tonnes wet weight. The licence was updated on 17 June 2022.