Offshore wind developers claim plans to designate marine protected areas could cost them as much as £42bn over 20 years. The plans are part of the government's ambition to create an ecologically coherent network of protected sites in UK waters. The network will include existing European protected sites and nationally significant areas known as marine conservation zones (MCZs). Last year, four regional stakeholder groups put forward 127 MCZs for waters around England and Wales (ENDS Report 440, p 30). These would nearly double the proportion of protected UK waters.
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