Brighton Marina’s operator has applied for a third licence to dredge the marina, this time to dispose of the material at a site off Newhaven, after its ten-year licence was quashed in 2025. Premier Marinas announced the application to the Marine Management Organisation on 19 October 2026 in a statement on its website. It says dredging has not been able to take place since the earlier licence was overturned, and that it aims to restart in spring 2027 if the new application is approved.
Applicant. Premier Marinas, which runs Brighton Marina.
Regulator. The Marine Management Organisation (MMO), which grants marine licences in English waters.
What. A new 10-year marine licence for maintenance dredging at Brighton Marina, with the material taken to the established marine disposal site off Newhaven.
Reference. MLA/2026/00477, according to Premier Marinas.
Where it stands. Submitted. Premier says the MMO is expected to open a public consultation in late October or early November 2026, once the application is validated.
How it got here
First licence. The MMO granted Premier a ten-year licence on 16 May 2025, according to its case page. It covered dredging at the marina and disposal at a site off Rottingdean, for up to 78,000 cubic metres in each dredging campaign and up to a million wet tonnes of material. The Rottingdean site lies inside the Beachy Head West Marine Conservation Zone. The MMO’s assessment concluded there was no significant risk to the zone’s conservation objectives, with monitoring conditions.
The challenge. Sussex Wildlife Trust applied in August 2025 for a judicial review of the decision. The MMO page says that in November 2025 the MMO told the court it would not defend the case. It accepted that, having found adverse impacts on protected areas within acceptable limits, it had not considered whether the proposal needed to avoid, reduce or offset them. The Trust says the licence was quashed on 4 November 2025, without a court hearing, after the MMO conceded one of its grounds. Its dredge disposal page sets out its position.
Second application. In early 2026 Premier applied for an interim one-year licence to keep using the Rottingdean site, from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027. The MMO’s case page says it would cover up to 46,000 cubic metres in each campaign and up to 63,400 wet tonnes over the year, and that Premier needs to keep the marina safe to navigate under the Brighton Marina Act 1968. A public consultation ran from 9 March to 6 April 2026, and the MMO received objections, mainly because the disposal site is inside the marine conservation zone. The page says the application was put on hold on 18 September 2026 while Premier explores alternative disposal options.
Why Newhaven
According to Premier, it submitted an environmental impact assessment screening request to the MMO in May 2026, and the MMO concluded in June that a full assessment was not required.
Premier also commissioned the marine consultancy ABPmer, working with Newhaven Port, to model how sediment spreads from the site. It says the study looked at 15 disposal scenarios, including one with the most intensive disposal from both Brighton and Newhaven, and found that sediment from Brighton does not interact with the Beachy Head West zone. It says the MMO advises which substances must be tested, with samples taken by an accredited contractor and analysed by a separate accredited laboratory. These are Premier’s own findings, and its statement does not give dredging volumes. The MMO has not yet published an assessment of the new application.
What the marina says
Premier says almost 150 businesses depend directly on the marina, including commercial fishing, dive charters, sail training and marine tourism, along with hospitality, leisure and retail, and that about 1,200 people work on site. It estimates the marina supports economic activity worth about £130 million a year in gross value added, and says the wider site gets more than eight million visits a year. These are the company’s own figures.
John Cervenka, Premier’s chief operating officer, says there has been more than a year of real uncertainty over the future of maintenance dredging at the marina. He says the company is not asking people to become experts in sediment modelling, and Premier encourages berth holders, businesses and users to write to the MMO in their own words about how they use, work at or rely on the marina.
What the wildlife trust says
Sussex Wildlife Trust says it is fundamentally opposed to disposing of dredged material inside the Beachy Head West zone, which it says is incompatible with the site’s conservation objectives, while accepting that the marina must stay open and be dredged. It objected to the interim licence application, MLA/2026/00065. Its page does not mention the Newhaven plan, and we have not seen a Trust response to the new application.
What happens next
Premier says that after validation the MMO will carry out a technical assessment, consult statutory advisers and run a public consultation. A public notice with instructions on how to comment is due to appear in a local newspaper and on a site notice when consultation starts, and anyone can comment directly to the MMO, including people who support the application. We have not found a consultation period or deadline, so check the MMO’s public register for the application before relying on any date.
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