Solent Marine Sites Annual Survey

The SEMS Relevant Authorities individually monitor their area of jurisdiction and report on the non-licensable activities that take place by completing an online survey every spring. This survey gathers details on changes in activity levels within SEMS and asks people to report on any impacts on designated sites. The survey responses form the basis of the SEMS Annual Management Report.

SEMS Annual Survey 2024

The SEMS Annual Survey was sent to Relevant Authorities in February. The deadline for submissions is 19 April 2024.

We have prepared a guide that looks at what activities RA's may need to take account of when filling in their response. Please view this guide before filling in the Survey.

Annual Survey: Guidance Note for Relevant Authorities

Login and Passwords

Users need to login to access the survey. Relevant Authorities will each be sent a login name and an initial password.

Your login name and password are unique to your organisation. Please type your login and password directly into the box rather than copy and paste.
Users can change the password. The password must have at least 8 characters, 2 of which must be numbers.
After three failed attempts to log in you will be locked out and your account will be disabled; you can email s ems@hants.gov.uk to request a reset. If you forget your password you can request a new password which will be sent to the email address that you registered with SEMS.
Once logged in, your relevant authority name should head up the profile.
Please remember to download a copy of your response for your future reference.
The survey can be found at http://survey.solentems.org.uk.

How to use the Survey

The survey form is all on one page, enabling you to scroll. There is a ‘Save Draft’ button at the top of the form, and one at the bottom. There is an automatic 5 hour TIMEOUT. After ‘Save Draft’, if you log out, you will be able to log back in later and view or edit your entry.
A red asterisk * by a question indicates a mandatory entry.
Once you havew finished the Survey click 'submit'.

Question on Activities

The list of activities surveyed can be found at http://www.solentems.org.uk/sems/SEMS_Activities/. Please view these pages prior to completing the survey as they will help to improve the quality of responses.
Responses should be backed up by evidence if possible. Please state whether the evidence you are reporting is based on data collection, anecdotal or perceived changes, and whether the confidence level is high, medium or low.
In section 1, when deciding on the level of each activity for the past 12 months, compared to the previous 12 months, there are four possible options, if a change has occurred please describe the change and record any evidence you may have to support this:

Increase
Decrease
No change
Don't know - please only use this option if you have no data on the activity.

A further set of question asks whether you think the activity is impacting on the SEMS site. For assistance, please refer to Natural England's advice on operations that gives detailed information on activity impacts. These can all be found on the designated sites system, for example Advice on Operations for Solent Maritime SAC.

Submitting

Please submit your response on the online form. You can view or edit your response by logging back in until the survey closes.
There is an opportunity at the end of the online survey to raise any other points or issues and upload a maximum of two documents. Any further documents should be sent separately to sems@hants.gov.uk. Web links to documents can be inserted in the relevant boxes throughout the survey.
When the survey has been completed, please click ‘Save Draft’ then ‘Submit’.
Please download or print your response via the blue tab that says 'survey' at the top of the online survey screen. Please note the survey is reset every year so you will not be able to access your information from the previous year unless you download or print your response. SEMS does hold on file last year's survey returns if needed.
If further help is required please email sems@hants.gov.uk.