Harbour Porpoise Possible Special
Areas of Conservation
The five harbour porpoise SACs consulted on in
2016 were given Ministerial clearance
and were submitted to the European Commission for
approval to designate on 30 January 2017.
JNCC and NRW consulted on five sites in Welsh, Northern Ireland,
English and offshore waters in 2016. JNCC and
relevant Country Nature Conservation Bodies assimilated
responses received and prepared a consultation report and advice to
Government. This was submitted to Governments on 28 September
2016 and can be accessed through the link provided below.
Governments have now given approval for submission of the sites to
the European Commission, for consideration to designate as Special
Areas of Conservation.
Site Information
Centres for the five sites are available and will be further
updated with documents and information regarding the designation
process and future governance of the sites:
Bristol Channel Approaches cSAC
West
Wales Marine cSAC
North Anglesey Marine cSAC
North
Channel cSAC
Southern North Sea cSAC
Project background and consultation archive:
The consultation ran between 19 January - 3 May
2016
These webpages continue to host the material and papers
produced as part of the identification and consultation process for
harbour porpoise pSACs. Please note, some documents are now
historic records rather than current documents – we will be
publishing any updated or new information on the Site Information
Centres when available.
There were five harbour porpoise pSACs which were
divided between two simultaneous consultations lead by the
Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and Natural
Resources Wales (NRW).
JNCC also scheduled six open public drop-in events in
support of the consultation, further details of which can be found
on our stakeholder events
page.
The five possible SACs split between two
consultations
What we consulted on
We consulted on:
a) the scientific basis on which the proposed
boundaries are based, as described in each of the Selection
Assessment Documents, and
b) the draft UK Socio-Economic Impact
Assessment, analysing the possible impacts of the sites on
human activity, including likely management scenarios for each
site.
These documents are listed and linked in the ‘Consultation
Documents’ section below. Supporting documentation with further
detail of how the boundaries were determined is provided as
background information. A list of
questions and answers was made available as an initial
reference for any queries regarding the consultation and the
information supplied.
Primary consultation documents - updated documents will be
hosted on the Site Information Centres linked above.
Bristol Channel Approaches pSAC
North Channel pSAC
Southern North Sea pSAC
Draft Socio-Economic Impact Assessment
A report analysing the potential positive and negative
impacts associated with the pSAC proposals regarding the
interaction of the proposals with human activities.
Supporting documentation for each site
Bristol Channel Approaches pSAC
North Channel pSAC
Southern North Sea pSAC
Supporting documentation for the site network
Various documents were produced in support of the
identification and consultation of the harbour porpoise
pSACs.
Site identification documents
What happens now
The CNCBs have collated the consultation responses and
produced a report with details of how comments have been considered
and subsequent advice on designation of the five sites. This was
submitted to Governments on 28 September 2016. Ministers have
considered this advice and granted approval for all five sites to
be submitted to the European Commission, which occurred on 30
January 2017. The European Commission will now consider
the submissions and a decision will follow regarding the
appropriateness of the proposals, and subsequent approval for
designation as Sites of Community Importance (SCI). UK
Governments will then formally consider whether to designate the
sites as Special Areas of Conservation for harbour porpoise.
For further information on Special Areas of Conservation in the
UK, visit the JNCC SAC webpage