Agenda item

To present the Designated Person’s initial Port Marine Safety Code Audits’ Reports for Weymouth, Bridport and Lyme Regis Harbours.

The Committee received a report by the Designated Person (DP), Mr William Heaps concerning his initial Port Marine Safety Code (PMSC) Audit reports for Weymouth, Bridport and Lyme Regis Harbours, the role of the DP being to provide independent assurance about the operation of the Marine Safety Management System.

Mr Heaps explained that this was year 1 of a 3 year appointment with initial audits carried out in October 2019.  The audits found that all 3 harbours had systems in place to support the Port Marine Safety Code and contained recommendations for improvements.

He outlined 3 areas of the reports that were important.

• Legal background - harbours were statutory undertakings enabled by an Act of Parliament and therefore its legal powers were separate from Dorset Council powers.  These powers were derived from ancient legislation and it was pleasing to see that the Harbour Revision Orders to modify those powers was now in progress.

• Accountability of the Duty Holder - the Harbours Committee was the statutory Duty Holder and the role of its members to ensure that navigation within the harbour was safe was separate from the responsibility as councillors.  The interest of the Designated Person was to provide reassurance regarding navigational safety rather than commercial interests.

• A review of the separation of Navigation Risk Assessment from Health & Safety risk Assessments was recommended, particularly in Bridport and Lyme Regis Harbours.

Mr Heaps reported that some progress on the identified improvements had already been made during the past year, in the area of HROs and development of an incident reporting system that was already in use. He recognised that the pandemic had put extra work on staff and it came as no surprise that some of the business as usual activity had been impacted, however, he had been impressed with what had been achieved and continued. His plan during the course of the next 2 years was to attend and provide reports to Harbours Committee meeting and to be available for advice.

The Chairman thanked Mr Heaps for his reports and stated that the Committee would benefit from annual training on the Port Marine Safety Code.  A recent virtual webinar offered nationally had been attended by some members of the Harbours Committee and information on future courses would be circulated to members of the committee.  Mr Heaps stated that he was also available to deliver training.

Mr Jim Clarke, Independent Member, stated that all 3 harbours had done broadly well, but that Weymouth Harbour had been identified as a standard bearer of good practice which was a matter for congratulation to all staff at Weymouth Harbour.  He felt that declassifying Bridport Harbour as a Competent Port Authority was significant issue that the Committee should address rather than preside over a change.

Mr Heaps stated that all three harbours were doing a lot of things well and that Bridport's classification as a Competent Harbour Authority enabled it to deliver a pilotage service legally should a pilot be required. Therefore, the necessary advice needed to be taken on this.

Proposed by Cllr Mark Roberts, seconded by Cllr Rob Hughes.

Decision- That the Port Marine Safety Code initial audit reports be accepted as a true reflection of the harbours' status against the Code.

Reason for Decision

Initial audits for each of the harbours have been completed by the Designated Person.