Supporting legislation is necessary to ensure that specific SEA procedural obligations are followed; however, legislation is often inflexible and may not anticipate all needs for SEA application or provide sufficient flexibility to accommodate new knowledge concerning development and conservation opportunities [28]. Fidler and Noble [2], for example, describe the law- based approach in the UK offshore sector as restrictive and, notwithstanding a clearly defined requirement, lacking clarity and purpose at the level of individual project actions.