UK SAC/SCI sites summary
Special Areas of Conservation/Sites of Community
Importance in the UK as at 31 August 2008
There are a total 621 designated SACs, SCIs
or cSACs in the United Kingdom (excluding
Gibraltar). In addition, there
are currently 3 possible SACs
and 2 draft SACs that have not yet been
submitted to the European Commission.
(site area figures have been rounded to the nearest whole
hectare)
| |
Special Area of
Conservation (SAC)1
|
Sites of Community
Importance (SCI)2
|
Candidate SACs
(cSACs)3
|
Possible & Draft
SACs
(pSACs & dSACs)4,5
|
| Country |
No. |
Area (ha) |
No. |
Area (ha) |
No. |
Area (ha) |
No. |
Area (ha)* |
| England |
228 |
809 144 |
2 |
36 712 |
1 |
375 |
0 |
0 |
| England/Scotland |
3 |
112 478 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| England/Wales |
5 |
5 552 |
2 |
89 520 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Northern Ireland |
52 |
65 913 |
1 |
408 |
1 |
293 |
0 |
0 |
| Scotland |
235 |
921 207 |
1 |
16 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
5 279 |
| Wales |
85 |
590 871 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| UK Offshore Waters |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
268 409 |
4 |
606 646 |
|
UK total |
608 |
2 505 165 |
6 |
126 656 |
7 |
269 077 |
5 |
611 925 |
| Gibraltar |
0 |
0 |
2 |
5687 |
0 |
6 230 |
0 |
0 |
Explanation of site status:
- 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.
- 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.
- Candidate SACs (cSACs) are sites that have
been submitted to the European Commission, but not yet formally
adopted.
- Possible SACs (pSACs) are sites that have been
formally advised to UK Government, but not yet submitted to the
European Commission.
- 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.
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.
* Site area information is not yet available for some possible
SACs; also, all pSAC and dSAC boundaries are subject to
confirmation, so pSAC/dSAC area figures are provisional, and give
only a general indication of the total site area of
pSACs/dSACs.