Closed consultation: Solent and Dorset Coast potential Special Protection Area: awaiting decision

Special Protection Areas (SPAs) are special sites designated under the EU Birds Directive to protect rare, vulnerable and migratory birds.

The original boundary proposal map missed out some areas in Portsmouth Harbour and all of Pagham Harbour. There was a mapping error in the River Avon where the boundary was not drawn to the mean high water as stated in the departmental brief. The map has been corrected and replaced.

Some stakeholders were also not made aware of the original consultation so there’s an extended opportunity for comments. All previous responses have been recorded and will be included and submitted to the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs. The consultation summary document and departmental brief have been replaced.

The proposal for Solent and Dorset Coast is to create a new SPA for internationally important populations of:

• common tern
• Sandwich tern
• little tern

This area is particularly important to these birds as much of the sea around their breeding colonies is the ideal habitat for plunge diving for food.

The proposal is available as a series of separate documents (attached above). You should:

• read the consultation summary that sets out the aims of the proposal
• read the departmental brief that provides the scientific explanation behind the proposal
• use the map to locate the proposal site (this is a large file and may take some time to open)

You can obtain site boundaries as vector polygons in both ESRI ArcMap shapefile and Pitney Bowes MapInfo tab file formats from Natural England’s GIS Digital Boundary Datasets.

Use the ‘respond online’ link below to give your views.