Dales Voe Decommissioning Base
EnviroCentre has been environmental consultant for Lerwick Port Authority for several years and in this time have advised on many reclamation, quay extension and new build schemes.
For Dales Voe, we led on the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) Permitting for the North Sea Decommissioning Base north of Lerwick.
This project involved close collaboration between AF Decom Offshore UK Ltd, Lerwick Port Authority (LPA) and Arch Henderson, the marine engineers for the project. The base will decommission large offshore structures from the UK North Sea sector and will be the largest such deep water facility in Scotland. The project involves extensive land reclamation to create the decommissioning slab.
The works consisted of dredging approximately 320,000m3 of rock to be used to reclaim approximately 29,000 m2 of land, at the north end of which a new quay facility was to be constructed.
EnviroCentre managed the EIA with topics assessed including airborne and underwater noise, marine and terrestrial ecology, landscape and visual as well as archaeology and cultural heritage. A significant volume of baseline data was collected for the EIA, including habitats surveys, protected species surveys and noise monitoring.
The project was undertaken as part of LPA’s masterplan for the port, and involved detailed stakeholder consultation with regulators and the local community. The resulting Environmental Statement was prepared in support of an application for consent from Scottish Government for a Harbour Revision Order (HRO). The scheme described above was prepared but due to Client decisions was subsequently modified for the smaller scheme now implemented at Dales Voe where the Buchan Alpha is being decommissioned. EnviroCentre also prepared the ES to support the application for the currently implemented base.
