UK SAC/SCI sites summary

Special Areas of Conservation/Sites of Community Importance in the UK as at 14 September 2011

 

There are a total 638 designated SACs, SCIs or cSACs in the United Kingdom (excluding Gibraltar).
 
 
Special Area of
Conservation (SAC)
1
Sites of Community
Importance (SCI)
2
Candidate SACs
(cSACs)
3
 Country No. Area (ha) No. Area (ha) No. Area (ha)
England 230 845 525 1 375 8 189 061
England/Scotland 3 112 493 0 0 0 0
England/Wales 7 95 072 0 0 0 0
England/Offshore 0 0 0 0 2 231 394
Northern Ireland 53 66 357 1 294 1 966
Scotland 236 915 700 0 0 1 11511
Wales 85 590 865 0 0 0 0
UK Offshore Waters 0 0 5 268 585 5 2 212 177
UK total 614 2 626 012 7 269 254 17 2 645 109
Gibraltar 0 0 2 5 687 0 0
 
(Site area figures have been calculated using GIS and rounded to the nearest whole hectare. Please note that site area figures for each country relate to both the terrestrial and inshore domain).
 

Explanation of site status:

  1. Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) are sites that have been adopted by the European Commission and formally designated by the government of each country in whose territory the site lies.
  2. Sites of Community Importance (SCIs) are sites that have been adopted by the European Commission but not yet formally designated by the government of each country.
  3. Candidate SACs (cSACs) are sites that have been submitted to the European Commission, but not yet formally adopted.
  4. Draft SACs (dSACs) are areas that have been formally advised to UK government as suitable for selection as SACs, but have not been formally approved by government as sites for public consultation.  This website does not provide information on  terrestrial / inshore dSACs, although further information on JNCC’s work on the identification of offshore draft SACs is available.”
 
Where an extension to a designated SAC or SCI is pending, different parts of the site can have different statuses - so, for example part of the site may be SAC, and the remainder cSAC. In this case the site would only appear once in the table, with the whole site shown as SAC.
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