Councillor Evans OBE (Leader of the Council) introduced the item and highlighted:

a)    Towards the end of 2023, Plymouth City Council (PCC) had secured £11.6 million of National Lottery Heritage funding that was going to enable delivery of a £22 million horizons project to bring life to the UK’s first National Marine Park;

b)    In the programmes first year:

                      i.        1500 people had been enable to get in, on, under or next to the National Marine Park (NMP), supported by the NMP gateways at Mountbatten, Tinside and Mount Edgcumbe;

                     ii.        The gateways were working hard to help people to enjoy the NMP in new ways from learning to swim, to archaeology camps;

c)    Over 6000 people engaged with the “Meet the Marine Park” programme;

d)    The Ocean Conservation Trust, who ran the National Marine Aquarium, had been going out across the city to engage people with the NMP;

e)    970 school children had begun their National Marine Park Journey, as part of the schools programme;

f)     663 volunteers had been working alongside PCC teams to enhance the NMP through over 7160 hours;

g)    PCC and NMP had kickstarted a significant £10 million programme of waterfront regeneration, including Tinside, one of Plymouth’s most iconic buildings and significant progress had already been made;

h)    There would be a more accessible pontoon at Mount Batten;

i)     The Norman Tower at Mount Batten would be made into a feature itself and made more accessible;

j)     The Mount Batten Centre would be renamed and refurbished to make more of the opportunities available;

k)    The Garden Battery at Mount Edgcumbe would be made accessible to the public and work would start in Summer 2025, once the bats had left;

l)     A new partnership between NMP and Plymouth Culture would help to deliver the digital engagement programme with funding from the Arts Council;

m)  Expressed his thanks to the PCC team, the partners, contractors, volunteers and community membered who had supported the project in its first year.

Councillor Briars-Delve (Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change) added the following:

n)    Councillor Cresswell (Cabinet Member for Education, Skills and Apprenticeships) had been working closely with the team on the development of the schools programme;

                      i.        By the end of the programme, all schools in Plymouth would have been invited to participate;

                     ii.        Engagement would include visits to the National Marine Aquarium, inspirational speakers visiting schools, and digital engagement;

o)    Volunteer work had included beach cleans as well as prepping Tinside for the Summer season;

p)    The Ranger programme had been successful and many of them would be seen out and about across the NMP;

q)    The team were reaching out to communities across the city, reaching those who are further away from the coast;

r)    Every aspect was being evaluated to ensure that the delivery and impact could be improved each year;

s)     The ‘Little Rays of Hope’ programme with the Marine Biological Association (MBA) hatched and raised young rays for release into the NMP;

                      i.        A competition was being run on Facebook to name the rays with lots of engagement and names such as Raymond, Dave, Raylor Swift and Lana Del Ray suggested;

t)     PCC’s Environmental Planning team had been working with the NMP on development of green and blue finance opportunities;

u)    Ideas like seagrass tokens and viability of habitat restoration was being investigated.

Kat Deeney (Head of Environmental Planning) further explained:

v)    The team were very interested in working with people who had never had the opportunity to engage with the water and to engage them with it in the ways that they wanted;

w)   NMP worked with PWP and attended SeaFest in 2024;

x)    It was important to make people proud of where they lived and to connect them to the heritage of the city;

y)    Work on Tinside would make it more accessible and more welcoming, but assets were being created within to create an income to support the legacy of the project;

                      i.        Some feedback had been that people wanted to enjoy the view but not get wet, so viewing spaces were being incorporated;

z)    Assets to support the legacy would also be in place at the Mount Batten Centre;

aa)  Investment in nature-based solutions was important;

bb) The inspire programme would work on introducing 16-24 year olds to career pathways relating to the NMP.

Supported by David Draffan (Service Director for Economic Development) and Hannah Harris (CEO, Plymouth Culture) in response to questions it was reported:

cc)  The team had developed their schools programme with learnings from The Box on a similar project;

dd) Transport costs to engagement opportunities for schools were covered;

ee) An event for teachers was run to help develop the programme and whilst this was happening, all their children were taken around the aquarium, to help make it happen;

ff)    Between the seven rangers, they had 25 degrees as well as marine management and conservation experience;

gg)  It was important to understand how people engaged with marketing to ensure that it could adapt to be most effective;

hh) Digital engagement had to opportunity to engage people more directly with the sea;

ii)    The team would consider being more clear on the National Marine Park, rather than referring to it as the park, because ‘The Park’ was actually the name of the cities crematorium;

jj)    A prioritisation process for engagement with schools had been adopted;

kk) Every report that went to the NMP Board had environmental mitigation included;

ll)    Although the focus was always on minimising carbon, seagrass and blue carbon were being considered for offsetting in the future;

mm)  There had been some challenges in the redevelopment of Tinside but the contractors were working hard to keep to schedule and provide solutions;

nn)        A site visit could be offered to the Panel when Tinside was ready;

oo)       More community access points would be added before the end of the project.

The Panel agreed to:

1.   Note the PSNMP update and support the ongoing delivery.

(Councillor Holloway left the meeting during this item)