Stakeholder Engagement and the Severn Estuary Shoreline Management Plan - Lessons Learned for Marine Planning and other Large Scale Plans

Introduction

Shoreline Management Plans (SMPs) are high level, strategic and non-statutory plans that set

overarching policy on how the shoreline should change over a 100 year time period, divided

into three 'epochs' (0-20, 20-50, 50-100 years). Notwithstanding their non-statutory nature,

they are considered a vital part of the planning and management of coastal erosion and

flooding in England and Wales, and their development has been funded by Defra (via the

Environment Agency) and the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) (via Welsh Local

Authorities).

The first round of SMPs was developed during the 1990s. The current round of Shoreline

Management Plan reviews are commonly referred to as SMP2s. SMP2s in England have