Published on: 09 June 2022
Following a recent British Marine article regarding industry meetings with the MCA which looks at issues surrounding UKCA marking marine equipment (with reference to marine equipment that pre Brexit had to be ship wheel marked under the Marine Equipment Directive), the MCA has officially announced its plans to give the organisations – known collectively as Conformity Assessment Bodies (CAB) – currently going through the accreditation process, provisional approval to carry out the approval work. They will still need to get full accreditation by June 2023.
It means that the United Kingdom Accreditation Service will carry out an initial assessment of the CABs which have currently applied based on certain sections of the marine equipment regulations. As they are all organisations which had previously been EU CABs, they should already have been through a similar process previously meaning they should still be able to provide the evidence that they comply.
The provisional appointment should give manufacturers enough time to obtain UK approval ahead of 1 January 2023 meaning that UK flagged ships should be able to source UK approved marine equipment.
Katy Ware, director of UK Maritime Services said: “We still need manufacturers to keep pushing ahead with the work they need to do to get UK approval for their equipment. This is just a helping hand to help them get across that line.”
The full press release can be found here.