Closed area · Scottish Government (Marine Scotland)
Demersal (seabed) fishing prohibited
Offshore Fishing (Prohibition of Fishing Methods) (Scotland) Order 2025 · in force since 2025-10-16
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 2026-09-06.
Fishing for sea fish with demersal mobile gear or demersal static gear, across the whole site.
Article 19(1), VERBATIM: "Fishing for sea fish with demersal mobile gear or demersal static gear is prohibited in the West of Scotland Marine Protected Area." Article 19(2): "In this article 'West of Scotland Marine Protected Area' means the area described in schedule 17."
ARTICLE 2 DEFINITIONS, VERBATIM AND LOAD-BEARING: "demersal mobile gear" includes a demersal seine net, a demersal trawl and a dredge. "demersal static gear" means "any gear or catch operation that does not require an active movement, that makes or has the potential to make contact with the sea bed", and includes creels/pots/traps, floated demersal longlines and static nets. "beam trawl" means "a trawl which has its mouth extended by a beam, bar or other rigid device and is designed and rigged to operate on or near the seabed". "bottom trawl" means "a trawl designed and rigged to operate on or near the seabed, other than a beam trawl". NOTE THE CONSEQUENCE: under THIS Order demersal mobile gear INCLUDES demersal seines, so the Firth of Forth carve-out ("a demersal trawl or dredge" at article 9(1)) is a narrowing of the gear list rather than an exception clause; and at any site where demersal STATIC gear is also prohibited, CREELING IS PROHIBITED TOO.
VESSEL SCOPE: section 5 of the Sea Fish (Conservation) Act 1967 is modified for Scotland by section 22A(6), substituting section 5(8): an order "may make provision— (a) applying to Scottish fishing boats whether within or outside the Scottish zone, (b) in any other case, applying to fishing boats within the Scottish zone." So the Order binds Scottish boats anywhere and any other fishing boat within the Scottish zone — which is why the French vessels in these closures are within it.
THERE ARE NO GENERAL EXCEPTIONS IN THIS ORDER — a positively established negative, not a failure to find. Across all 22 articles, 19 schedules and the Explanatory Note the words "exempt"/"exemption", "permit"/"permitted", "licence", "scientific"/"research", "transit", "passage", "saving" and "revoke" occur ZERO times. "does not apply" occurs exactly ONCE, at article 16(2), which disapplies the Solan Bank Reef Fifth Protected Area prohibition for a demersal trawl or demersal seine net between 1 September and 31 October each year. That is the ONLY exception in the whole instrument. There is no permit route, no scientific derogation and no transit defence. ARTICLE 22 is a separate positive DUTY, not a defence: "While a fishing vessel is within a protected area the master of the vessel must ensure that any fishing gear carried on board the vessel is properly stowed in such a way that it may not be readily used." It runs in the accusing direction, and whether gear was properly stowed is not observable from AIS or from satellite imagery, so it is context rather than something that can be established here.
Article 19(1) of the Offshore Fishing (Prohibition of Fishing Methods) (Scotland) Order 2025 (SSI 2025/240) prohibits fishing for sea fish with demersal mobile gear or demersal static gear (which includes creels, pots and traps) throughout the West of Scotland Marine Protected Area (schedule 17). The site is closed in its entirety, with no internal zoning. The Order has no exception, season or permit route for this site. It binds Scottish fishing boats anywhere and any other fishing boat within the Scottish zone. Between about 8.3°W and 11.3°W the outline drawn on the map runs up to 18 km north of the Order's boundary; that strip is not closed by the Order.
Demersal mobile and demersal static gear prohibited from full site.
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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