Last week, as part of LUC’s 50 birthday celebrations, we hosted a marine and coastal planning event in our offices in central Bristol.

We welcomed over 30 people for an interesting series of presentations on marine and coastal planning:

• What is marine and coastal planning? David Hutchinson – Marine Management Organisation
• Enterprise Neptune: Reflecting on the National Trust’s coastal work over the last 50 years and the challenges that lie ahead. Phil Dyke – National Trust
• Working in the marine environment. Mark Russell – British Marine Aggregates Producers Association
• Development in the coastal and marine environment: challenges and opportunities. Alex Blake – Tidal Lagoon Power
• Using Seascape Character Assessment as a tool to integrate terrestrial and marine planning.Chris Drake – Kent County Council
• Scottish Marine Recreation and Tourism study. Nick James – LUC

After the presentations, we served drinks and canapés and invited delegates to participate in an interactive workshop. We live mapped the range of marine and coastal recreational activities they enjoyed in the south-west, to produce this interesting map based on innovative heat mapping techniques we developed for our recent marine recreation and tourism study for Marine Scotland.

The afternoon was a great success and we look forward to our next 50th-anniversary event, to be held in our Glasgow offices on 15 June.