Queen of Sweden Historic Marine Protected Area - designation proposal: final business and regulatory impact assessment – 18 July 2025

Public consultation

All parties with an interest in the proposal to designate the Historic MPA were invited to comment during an 8-week HES consultation which ran from 20 February to 17 April 2019. The consultation was run as a Survey Monkey questionnaire and as a dual-site exercise, factoring in the proposal for Scapa Flow to also be designated as a Historic MPA. HES received 48 responses to the questionnaire of which 8 respondents indicated their intention to respond only to the Queen of Sweden proposal and 21 who indicated their intention to comment on both proposals.

Support for the Queen of Sweden proposal was significant at 92% and no changes to the 2019 BRIA were suggested.

Owing to the non-statutory basis of the HES consultation, the findings from this engagement activity formed a consultation analysis report which was presented as advice to the Scottish Government and can be accessed here: Consultation Report: Historic Marine Protected Areas | HES | History.

The Scottish Government then ran a 4-week consultation from 30 October – 27 November 2019. This was also run as a dual-site exercise that included the Scapa Flow proposal and received a total of 16 responses, of which 14 specifically answered the question, “Do you support the designation of the Queen of Sweden as a Historic MPA?” Nine responses were in support of the proposal, one indicated ‘no objection’ and the remainder did not express a view.

The Scottish Government has published its analysis of and response to the consultation which can be accessed here: Consultation response report.

Due to the impacts of COVID-19, work to progress the proposal was paused and then restarted in 2024. At this point, the Scottish Government engaged with all previous respondents to the 2019 consultation as well as 11 additional individuals and organisations who had not previously responded but had the potential to be interested. All were provided with links to the previous consultation documents, invited to provide views and comments, and advise of any changes to their previous responses.

The 2024 engagement activity provided assurance of previous respondents’ views. From the engagement with the 11 individuals/organisations who had not previously responded to the consultation, there were no concerns expressed and the proposals elicited supportive views and comments from those who responded.

Other stakeholders

Relevant stakeholder engagement is covered by the sections above.