The health of UK seas is at rock bottom – they’re in crisis – so when the UK Government announced two years ago that it would be introducing a minimum of five Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) to English waters we cheered and hailed it as a landmark moment for marine conservation.

At the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, we were delighted to hear that Inner Silver Pit off the Lincolnshire coast had been chosen as one of the five sites. After so many years of effort, we thought that we were finally seeing a move towards full protection of some of our richest marine habitats. However, this week we learnt that only three of the five sites would be taken forward in the process of designation as HPMAs. We are incredibly disappointed that Lincolnshire’s Silver Pit and Lindisfarne, also in the North Sea, have been dropped from the list.

We welcome that three sites: Allonby Bay in the mouth of the Solway Firth, Dolphin Head in the English Channel and North-East of Farnes Deep off the coast from Berwick-upon-Tweed, will get the gold standard of marine protection. But three sites is not enough.

HPMAs are proven to work. By protecting sites from all damaging activities, the seafloor and waters will recover and become abundant with life once again. Fragile animals such as corals and reefs will return and fish of all shapes and sizes will thrive. This will not only benefit the numerous dolphins, whales, sharks, seabirds and seals which feed in our rich waters, but the spillover of fish into surrounding waters will help restock our seas.

The Inner Silver Pit is one of the last remnants of a once rich sea. If protected, it would help the rest of the North Sea recover and again be rich in cod, plaice, herring, sole and other marine wildlife.

Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust will continue to fight for protection of Silver Pit. It is a unique feature in the North Sea and is critical for marine wildlife. We will call on the government to designate more Highly Protected Marine Areas so that we can achieve the goal of 30% of land and sea protected and in recovery by 2030.

About Silver Pit

Located approximately 26km from Theddlethorpe off the Lincolnshire coast, Silver Pit incorporates the Inner Silver Pit glacial tunnel valley. Sloping from 11 - 98 metres the deep canyon walls here descend into a 50km long glacial tunnel.

The seafloor consists of mixed sediments and ross worm reef which in addition to blue mussel beds supports an abundance of marine wildlife, including brittlestars, sea squirts, hydroids, buried polychaete worms and bivalve molluscs.

The deepest areas are carpeted in common and serpent’s table brittlestars. Lemon and Dover sole, sprat, whiting, cod, plaice and herring all spawn here and attract feeding white-beaked dolphins, minke whales and harbour porpoises.