Closed area · Scottish Government (Marine Scotland)
No-take zone — all fishing prohibited
The South Arran Marine Conservation Order 2015 - SSI 2015 No. 437 (Art 4) · in force since 2016-02-08
A CAUGHT review has read the instrument behind this closure, rather than relying on the summary published with the boundary. Where the two differ, the instrument governs; this reading was made on 2026-09-05.
All fishing of every kind. Inside the Schedule 3 area the Order stacks four prohibitions: article 4(2) bans all fishing gear, article 4(5) bans passive gear (the Schedule 2 Part 1 area is described by the same six points P-U), article 4(7) bans any pelagic trawl, rod and line or handline, and article 4(10) provides that "A person must not fish by hand within that part of the protected area which is described in Schedule 3."
A GENUINE TOTAL NO-TAKE, and unlike the rest of the protected area it carries no gear carve-out at all. The article 4(4) demersal-trawl exception is expressly limited to “those parts of the protected area which are described in Schedule 1”, and the Schedule 1 corridors do not touch the Schedule 3 no-take area. The only exceptions anywhere in the Order are article 4(9) — saving life, or securing the safety of a vessel, aircraft or marine structure — and an article 5 permit issued by the Scottish Ministers for scientific research. Neither is a route to commercial fishing.
A person must not deploy (by any means) or use any fishing gear within the protected area.
Summary as published in the source dataset, shown for comparison. A dataset paraphrase can be narrower or wider than the instrument it summarises, and finding out which is the work above.
Vessels are named only on cases that read CAUGHT and have been examined by a reviewer. Every other case is linked without a name: most are resolved, and naming a boat on a page about the closure would carry an accusation the assessment does not support.
What a case here means. A CAUGHT case is a reason to look, not a verdict. Each one is judged on three independent factors — was it fishing, here and then; what gear does the vessel actually use; and what was prohibited there at that time — and the weakest of the three decides. Most cases are resolved.
Boundaries and rule summaries come from the published datasets named at the foot of this page and can contain errors; the legislation is the authority. If you believe this closure is described wrongly, tell us at contact@caught.org.uk.
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