MARINE experts reviewing the handling of the MSC Napoli disaster praised the efforts of coastal services but said lessons would be learned.

More than 70 members of the Dorset Coast Forum attended a meeting at Winfrith Technology Centre.

Also top of the agenda was the proposals of the Marine Bill White Paper, which were outlined by keynote speaker David Bench, head of DEFRA's Marine Team.

Around 140 organisations with an interest in the coastal environment are involved in the forum.

Representatives from the county council, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Environment Agency, put forward their perspectives on the emergency planning when the Napoli ran aground in January.

Dorset County Council's coastal policy manager Ken Buchan said: "I think the take home message was that it was a job fairly well done, but there are certainly lessons to be learned. It highlighted a lot of new issues.

"For example, the contingency plans that were exercised are based towards oil pollution incidents, but with a container ship there was the other issue of what was in the containers.

"Certainly the operation to deal with the containers has gone pretty well."

Mr Bench's in-depth look at the Marine Bill set out the five key areas of the bill, spatial planning, nature conservation, activity licensing, fisheries management and plans to establish a new Marine Management Organisation.

Forum members also had the opportunity to put their views across for the Jurassic Coast Management Plan, which is currently being revised.