Natural England

A series of marine SACs has already been designated around the coast of England. Natural England is now proceeding with the selection and designation of a second series of SACs around the English coast. These sites will contain the Habitats Directive Annex I features, Reefs and Sandbanks and will be located in the 0-12 nautical mile zone. Unlike the current suite of marine SACs, these sites will not be attached to the coast.

Work on identifying inshore SACs began in 2003/04 when English Nature produced maps showing indicative areas of potential sandbank and Reef habitat based on hydrographic data and sediment data. Since then Natural England has been working to validate these maps by filling in any obvious gaps, and by adding information on habitats that could not be derived from BGS data, for example, biogenic features. During 2004/05 datasets were sourced to fill the remaining gaps. This has produced a list of 7 areas of search (see table below) sandbanks and reef which will require further validation through survey before Natural England is in a position to make recommendations for inshore marine SAC selection.

Areas of search

	Name	Features
1	Outer Wash Sandbanks	1) Subtidal Sandbanks 2) Biogenic Reef (Sabellaria at Area 107)
2	Greater Thames Estuary	Subtidal Sandbanks
3	Lyme Bay to Poole Bay	1) Sandbanks (Maerl) 2) Biogenic Reef (Modiolus) 3) Rocky Reef 4) Biogenic Reef (Mytilus)
4	Salcombe to Yealm and Eddystone	Rocky Reef
5	Lizard Point	Rocky Reef
6	Land End & Cape Bank	Rocky Reef
7	Outer Morecambe Bay, shell Flat and Lune Deep	1) Subtidal SandBank 2) Boulder Reef

This year work a data collation exercise to gather together all existing data for each of the seven sites as been carried out along with marine survey to acquire new data to fill the gaps. Survey work is due to be completed by the end 2007 (depending on weather conditions and equipment reliability) with the aim of identifying new SACs and proposing site boundaries by April 2008.