Marine licence application forms

How to apply for a marine licence

Some marine activities require a licence under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009.  Find out if you need a marine licence.

To apply for a licence please complete the relevant form from the bottom of this page and send to us, together with any supporting information and the relevant fee.

Which application form should I use?

There are 4 types of marine licence application:

• Band 1 Application form – for specific activities considered low risk that are subject to a simpler licensing process. Please read the Band 1 guidance before submitting a Band 1 application
  
  
• Dredge and Disposal Application Form – for dredge and/or disposal operations
  
  
• Marine Minerals Application Form – for the extraction of marine minerals
  
  
• Marine Works Application form – Marine Works include, but are not limited to coast defences, beneficial uses of dredged materials, subsea cables, pontoons, jetties, ground investigations, land reclamation, and outfall pipes

What should be submitted as supporting information?

All marine licence applications will be assessed so that we can understand the likely impacts of the proposed activities, therefore you should provide us with relevant information to allow us to do this.

The completed application form must be accompanied by a location plan and, where appropriate, descriptive drawing(s) and any supporting environmental assessments.

All applications (apart from Band 1 low risk activity applications) must be accompanied by a WFD assessment, and complete a Welsh National Marine Plan signposting document setting out how the project complies with its policies. Applicant should contact the Marine Licensing Team at marinelicensing@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk to request a template for the signposting document.

In addition dredge and/or disposal application must be accompanied by sediment sampling and analysis results, and a biosecurity risk assessment. A template biosecurity risk assessment for dredge activities as well as a sediment sample analysis results form can be requested from the Marine Licensing Team at marinelicensing@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk.

Applications to harvest or grow aquaculture (seaweed or shellfish) must also include:

• Navigational Risk Assessment (NRA) - contact the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and Trinity House to help with this.
• Biosecurity plan
• Marine Mammal Entanglement protocol - contact our pre application advice service to help with this.
• Details of any protected site features – contact our pre application advice service to help with this.
• Evidence that you have consulted with the relevant organisations to prepare your application.

We may need to request more information or additional assessments so that we can understand the likely impacts of the proposed activities. 

Certain types of project with the potential to significantly affect the environment may need Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) consent. If the works fall under the Marine Works (EIA) Regulations and a formal Environmental Impact Assessment is required you will be expected to submit an Environmental Statement with your application.

How do I submit a marine licence application?

Apply for a Band 1 low risk activities licence online.

Other applications can be sent electronically to permitreceiptcentre@naturalresourceswales.gov.uk

How many copies are required?

If the application form and all supporting documents can be sent electronically in an email that is 20MB or smaller, we will accept the application by email. We will, however, require one hard copy of all application documents for our own review and record.

If the application form and all supporting documents are too big to email, we would advise you to contact us in order to determine the most appropriate method for submitting the application. We may need additional copies of the marine licence application and supporting documents for consultation purposes. These can be either hard copies or CD copies. We would advise you to contact us prior to submitting a large number of hard copies in order to decide the most appropriate method.

Application fees

Applications must be accompanied by the relevant fee. Please see our fees and charges page.

We will not begin processing an application until the correct fee has been paid.