Bait Digging & Collecting Code
- Always carefully replace stones or seaweed when collecting crabs, to avoid damaging other sheltering animals
- Support a voluntary ban on 'rockworm' collecting and avoid using any methods that damage the chalk reef
- Take care to avoid putting roosting or feeding wintering birds to flight especially towards high tide or at night
- Back-fill any holes that you dig to restore the seashore and make it safe for other users - unless the tide is about to do this for you!
- Take care to avoid disturbance to archaeological sites within St Mildred's & Minnis Bay
- Keep away from areas that may cause a danger with other priority users, such as designated launch sites or moorings areas
- Avoid using large bore bait pumps close to the shoreline
- Take re-usable buckets or containers for collecting
- Avoid collecting (or using) rare or unusual bait such as pipefish or lumpfish
'Sandwich & Pegwell Bay National Nature Reserve'
In addition to this code, a workshop between local bait diggers and conservation representatives produced a local voluntary Pegwell Bay Bait & Bird Agreement to help reduce the impact of this activity on the important bird life within the National Nature Reserve. Then, there was subsequent agreement to never to use the southern end of this site adjacent to the country park
England Coast Path: New access restrictions 2016 were brought in 2016, when the new England Coastal Path was launched around this part of the England coast (Marine & Coastal Access Act, 2009).
Thanet Coast (NEKMPA)
c/o Thanet District Council,
PO Box 9, Cecil Street, Margate, Kent CT9 1XZ
United Kingdom
E-mail:
Tony Child
Thanet Coast (NE Kent Marine Protected Area) Officer
Telephone: +44 (0) 1843 577672
(based in Manston Road Depot)