Marine Designations for the Sound of Barra and the Mingulay Reefs are being opposed by the  community who are calling for these designations not to be taken to consultation but to be abandoned now! Once the formal consultation process gets underway then there is very little that local communities can do to influence the progress or the scope of the draft proposals for these designations.  Na h-Eileanan an Iar SNP MP Angus MacNeil has written to Scottish Government Environment Minister, Michael Russell MSP, asking that no consultation be held with any view to making the Sound of Barra or east of Mingulay an special area of conservation.

Mr MacNeil said: “I met with a local representative group at the weekend, who just feel that they are being strangled by conservation and designation orders. “ They simply do not feel that any consultation should happen or SAC designation made which would take in most of the Sound of Barra and complete encircle the Island of Eriskay. People are frankly sick tired of the perennial conservation industry that comes their way.” He also stated that he was trying to find the person or group responsible in Brussels for this latest conservation bureaucracy to come to the affected islands and state why and explain just what threats they wield if the designation does not take place.