What makes Morecambe Bay special?

Morecambe Bay has the most impressive estuarine coastline in Europe with vast open panoramas and constantly changing channels and patterns of light and water.  The Bay has the largest intertidal area in the UK and is large enough for all of Manchester within the M62 to fit inside - twice! 

Geography

Morecambe Bay is a large sandy bay in the north west of England, reaching from Walney Island in the north to Fleetwood in the south.

• The Bay is the largest continuous intertidal area in the whole of Britain.covers an area of 310km² and consists mainly of intertidal sandflats and mudflats.
• Morecambe Bay has more than 5% of the UK's total area of saltmarsh.
• The Bay is broad and shallow with a large tidal range of up to 10.5 metres at spring tides and an ebbing tide that can fall back to 12km.
• The flood tide rushes into the Bay with the speed of 'a good horse'.
• Tidal bores can reach speeds of up to 9 knots and can cover an area the size of a football pitch in minutes.
• Several rivers flow into Morecambe Bay including the rivers Kent, Keer, Leven, Lune and Wyre.
• The Kent is one of the fastest flowing rivers in England.
• Up to 200,000 people live and work around the Bay.

Industry & resources

There are a number of diverse industries in Morecambe Bay and it has a number of important resources.

• The saltmarshes and adjacent coastal land, much of it reclaimed from the sea, provides agricultural land, specifically grazing for sheep and cattle.
• Morecambe Bay is an important location for commercial fishing. Finfish caught in the Bay include flatfish, bass, cod and whitebait. Shellfish include mussels and shrimps caught for local consumption and for export to Europe. Throughout the Bay a mixture of traditional and modern fishing methods are used.  To find out more about the history, traditions and people who have fished the bay click here.
• The industrial growth of Barrow-in-Furness was built on the iron industry and more recently through shipbuilding and engineering operations.
• The ports of Barrow, Heysham and Fleetwood are important economic interests.
• Six trillion cubic feet of natural gas lie offshore beyond the entrance to Morecambe Bay. This is expected to last 40 years and supplies 10% of the UK's gas demand.
• Heysham I and II power stations produces enough electricity to supply the whole of Lancashire and most of Great Manchester.
• The Crown Estate has awarded 9 leases for offshore wind energy developments off the North West coast, including one site 10 km off Walney Island and 3 sites 7km off Cleveleys. If developed, each site may have 20-30 turbines, with each turbine generating enough electricity to supply 1,500 households.
• Tourism is an important contributor to the local economy. The maritime heritage of Morecambe Bay features strongly in regeneration initiatives at Fleetwood, Morecambe, Lancaster and Barrow.
• One of the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, GlaxoSmithKline, has a works situated in Ulverston.

Tourism & recreation

Morecambe Bay offers many opportunities for tourism and recreation. Some suggestions are:

• Arnside - where the Barrow to Lancaster railway crosses the Kent Estuary on a wonderful viaduct. The old pier opposite the Post Office is a reminder of the days when most of the local trade was done by sea. Arnside is located within one of Britain’s smallest Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty - the Arnside/Silverdale AONB. There are many interesting and scenic local walks - both along the shoreline and over Arnside Knott.
  

• Barrow-in-Furness - Perhaps best known for its shipbuilding industry, there are many attractions for tourists in and around this Victorian town. These include Furness Abbey, the Docks Museum, Piel Island, Dalton Castle and the Nature Reserve at South Walney.  A walk along Barrow's coastline is an exhilarating experience with vast open views and the juxtaposition of industry and nature.
  

• Fleetwood - A seaside town with a working port and harbour yacht marina, Fleetwood still has strong maritime associations and is one of the main fishing ports in Morecambe Bay. The Maritime history of Fleetwood is told in the Maritime Museum, an excellent day out both for schools and for tourists. For shopping there is the Fleetwood Market and the Freeport Shopping and Leisure Village. Fleetwood is also known for its fiery Fisherman's Friends lozenges.
  

• Grange-over-Sands - A picturesque Edwardian seaside resort with one of the mildest climates in the North of England. The promenade, ornamental gardens, a duck pond, golf courses, brass band concerts and good vantage points for bird watching are some of the attractions on offer. Recently renovated, the train station is a beautiful example of turn of the century (19th) architecture with great views of the Bay.
  
• Heysham - Although often associated with its relatively recent power station, Heysham has a rich heritage and is mentioned in the Domesday Book, some buildings in Heysham actually pre-date that time. The original Grade I listed church at Heysham dates back to 800AD although most of the present church building dates from the 14^th century. Heysham harbour was opened in 1904 and today the port has daily freight sailings to Dublin, Warrenpoint and Belfast and passenger services to Douglas on the Isle of Man. The village is well known for its nettle beer.
  
• Lancaster - Often described as the cultural centre of Lancashire, Lancaster hosts many concerts, festivals, plays and exhibitions held both in Lancaster city and in the University campus. Among the attractions of this Georgian town are numerous historic buildings such as Lancaster Castle, The Priory and Judges Lodgings; museums including the Maritime Museum, Cottage Museum and City Museum and outdoor reaction including Ryeland's Park, Williamson's Park and butterfly house, and scenic walks along the canal and River Lune.
  
• Morecambe - A Victorian seaside resort, Morecambe's great location overlooking the Bay and the Lakeland fells ensure that it is still a popular destination for holidays and day trips. Of particular note is the award winning Tern public art project, inspired by the Bay's abundance of wildfowl and wading birds. The initial phase of this regeneration initiative includes the pavement poems and games on the stone jetty and the popular Eric Morecambe statue. Since Eric was unveiled by the Queen in 1999, visitors to Morecambe's Tourist Information Centre have almost doubled. The next phase of the Tern project will include a Moon Walk, a stone panorama of the Lakeland fells and a "See" Wall.
  
• Ulverston - This small market town is the birthplace of Stan Laurel and has the world's only Laurel and Hardy museum. The town is described as South Lakeland's festival centre and the Lantern Festival, Flag Festival and Comedy Festival have become well established in recent years. Other attractions include Ulverston's Heritage Centre and the Lanternhouse which is the home of the pioneering arts company that bears its name promoting the craft of celebration.
  
• Crossing the Bay - In the past, travellers to the Furness Peninsula from the south of the Bay used the route across the sands of Morecambe Bay rather than the time-consuming route via Levens Bridge. The sands were responsible for many deaths, including the sinking or overturning of horse-drawn coaches before the cessation of the service in 1857. Crossing is still possible at low tides with the leadership of a professional guide. The Duchy of Lancaster has employed guides since 1536 and the latest in a long line is Cedric Robinson, official Queen’s Guide to the Kent Sands.  Guided walks across the Bay are held regularly throughout the summer to raise money for charity.
  There is also a cross-bay swim - considered almost as testing as the Channel swim - and cross-bay races held for sailing.

Morecambe Bay also offers recreational opportunities for angling, walking cycling and birdwatching and water sports such as sailing, windsurfing and canoeing.

For more tourist information visit Cumbria or Lancashire tourism websites.

Key authorities

Local authorities
Local authorities deliver a wide variety of local and strategic services designed to meet the needs of residents, businesses and visitors. They are responsible for a range of functions including education, social services, strategic planning, highways and transportation, minerals and waste planning, economic development, trading standards, waste regulation, waste disposal and emergency planning.

• Barrow Borough Council
• Cumbria County Council
• Lancashire County Council
• Lancaster City Council
• South Lakeland District Council
• Wyre Borough Council

Port authorities
Port authorities provide port facilities and services to shippers, cargo owners and other port users including fishing and leisure crafts.

• Associated British Ports (Barrow)
• Heysham Port Authority

Other authorities

• Natural England
  Natural England looks after the wildlife in and around the Bay by identifying and notifying SSSI's and declaring National Nature Reserves. They work with people and organisations to become involved in better nature conservation and provide advice on the conservation of rare species, wildlife habitats and natural features.
• Environment Agency
  The Environment Agency has a range of activities including the monitoring of bathing water and responsibility for migratory fish stocks such as salmon.
• Lake District National Park Authority
  The Lake District National Park Authority was established by Parliament in 1951 to protect and conserve the area's outstanding beauty and to promote its quiet enjoyment by the public. As a local authority the LDNPA also takes into account the needs of the 40,000 or so people who live inside the National Park boundary.
• North Western and North Wales Sea Fisheries Committee
  A local management body with responsibility for both inshore and offshore fisheries.
• United Utilities
  Amongst other things, United Utilities are responsible for waste water treatment.

Birds & biodiversity

Birds
Morecambe Bay is the most important estuary in Britain for its seabird and waterfowl populations and has the third largest number of wintering wildfowl in Britain.

On average Morecambe Bay supports:

• 224,000 wintering waterfowl
• 20,000 breeding seabirds.

The following table lists the birds that are regularly found over winter in Morecambe Bay.

Adapted from Morecambe Bay European marine site management scheme - click here to download.

For more information about birds in the Bay, contact the RSPB at Leighton Moss on 01524 701601

Biodiversity
The diverse climatic conditions, topography and geology of Morecambe Bay offer fantastic opportunities for biodiversity or "the variety of life". 

Birds are not the only example of the rich fauna to be found and much of the coastline is classified as being of international importance for a variety of wildlife. 

The high brown fritillary butterfly is an example of one of the very rare animals that live in Morecambe Bay. The high brown fritillary is thought to be the UK's most threatened butterfly and is extinct from most of the country.  Many other animals thrive around the Bay and in the rivers that feed it.  Otters can be found in the Leven, Kent, Bela, Keer, Lune and Wyre and salmon and trout are doing well on the Lune and the Kent against national and international trends.

Habitats

Leighton Moss reedbed
The largest reedbed in northwest England, Leighton Moss is situated on the eastern edge of Morecambe Bay in Lancashire. The Moss is particularly important as a breeding ground for Bittern (Botaurus stellaris), Marsh Harrier (Circus aeruginosus) and Bearded Tit (Panurus biarmicus). The reedbeds are also important for rare moths, hoverflies , dragonflies, otters (Lutra lutra), and a host of other wildlife.

The RSPB has an excellent visitor and schoolroom facilities as part of its interpretative centre on the reserve.

Shingle spits
Unlike most shingle shores which are pounded by waves, plants are able to grow on the stable shingle above the high tide mark at Walney and Foulney Islands. Walney Island has some of the most diverse shingle communities in the UK, with rare plants such as Ray's knotgrass, Portland spurge and the Isle of Man cabbage. Gulls, terns and eider ducks nest on the shingle in summer and migrant waders roost there in winter.

Saltmarshes
Morecambe Bay has more than 5% of the UK's total area of saltmarsh. Saltmarsh is a unique community of salt tolerant plants that colonise mud and sand flats, trapping and stabilising the sediment, allowing other plants to grow. The saltmarsh provides grazing for sheep and cattle and attracts thousands of overwintering wildfowl. The following are among the plants that inhabit the saltmarsh:

Eroding Saltmarsh

• Enteromorpha enterica 
• Salicornia europa or glasswort
• Halimione portaculiodes
• Puccinellia maritima
• Spartina anglica

Intertidal sandflats
Sandflats that are not disturbed by waves and tidal currents have an abundance of species and provide rich feeding grounds for waders and wildfowl. Lugworms, ragworms, edible cockles, crustaceans, Baltic tellins and peppery furrow shells are all found here.

Intertidal mudflats
At the head of the river estuaries smaller areas of mudflats are found. The reduced salinity here results in slightly different communities of animals such as grazing mud snails and eelgrass. Large eelgrass beds are present in the Walney Channel and around Foulney Island, the only place in north west England where this intertidal flowering plant occurs.

Intertidal scars or skears and bedrock
Hard rocky substrate known as scars or skears and outcrops of bedrock provide a habitat for a mixture of animals that cannot live on soft sand. Some of the animals commonly found on skears are mussels, barnacles, tubeworms, periwinkles, hairy sea-firs and sea-quirts. Bedrock provides a rarer and more secure habitat and is draped with brown wrack seaweeds under which many animals seek shelter.

Subtidal sandbars and skears
The incoming tide drives away waders and wildfowl, bringing other predators to feed on the sandbanks and skears. Flatfish feed from the sandy bottom and occasionally swarms of starfish decimate mussel beds. The shallow waters (less than 10 metres deep) and abundance of food in the Bay also make an ideal spawning and nursery area for fish like bass and herring fry or 'whitebait' and flatfish such as flounders, known locally as 'flukes'. Salmon and sea trout also pass through, returning to their breeding grounds in the rivers that drain into the Bay.

Designations

Morecambe Bay has received many conservation designations, nationally and internationally, reflecting the importance of the wildlife and landscape of the area.

International designations
Morecambe Bay is a designated European marine site (Ems). The Ems includes a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) designated under the European Union's Habitats Directive and a Special Protection Area (SPA) designated under the Birds Directive.

Special Area of Conservation
The Bay has received this designation including for its habitats unique to the north-west of England including:

• Large shallow inlets and bays
• Intertidal mudflats and sandflats
• Pioneer saltmarsh
• Saltmarsh

Special Protection Area
The Bay has received this European marine site designation to help protect the large numbers of migrating birds that visits the mud-flats in autumn and summer.  In particular the Bay supports:

• Internationally important assemblages of waterfowl and seabirds
• Internationally important populations of regularly occurring migratory species
• Internationally important populations of regularly occurring Annex 1 species

Morecambe Bay is also designated as a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention.

National designations

• Morecambe Bay is designated a Special Site of Scientific Interest (SSSI) - notified under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981
• The Arnside/Silverdale area is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)
• The Lake District National Park extends to the shore on the Kent and Leven estuaries in the northern part of the Bay.

Landscape

Morecambe Bay is a unique place, but the designations for quantities and qualities of habitat and birdlife are not the only things that make it special. 

Arnside sunset

A number of things - much less tangible, much harder to define and measure - combine to create the landscape of the Bay. The unique views of the Lakeland Fells, the vast expanse of tidal sandflats, the tranquillity, the shifting sands, the light and the sense of history and heritage - these are the things that make the Bay so special to the many people who live and visit here. 

Our coastal landscape is fragile and irreplaceable, and though working or living around it and seeing it daily adds to our quality of life, it usually has a much lower profile than other aspects of the environment. We should now be looking for a more holistic conservation designation for the Bay, something that encompasses all of the Bay's many assets - a designation perhaps simply for being a great place to be.

To find out more ...

Morecambe Bay Strategy
The Morecambe Bay Strategy was published in 1996. Its aim was to provide a management framework to build an economically prosperous and environmentally sustainable future for the communities, and the natural and man made features which make the Bay distinctive. The strategy was co-ordinated by local authorities and English Nature, but its content came largely from hundreds of organisations and individuals who made contributions through meetings and Working Groups.

Eight objectives followed as a result of Working Groups that involved over 120 users of the Bay during a five month period in 1995. A series of policies relating to each of the objectives was then developed. The eight objectives covered were

• Coastal defence
• Fisheries
• Heritage and landscape
• Industry, transport and development
• Land management
• Pollution
• Recreation and tourism
• Wildlife

The Strategy is implemented through partnership between users and regulators.  You can download a full copy of the Strategy in PDF format by clicking on the links below.

Part 1 (11KB) Part 2 (115KB)

Other resources
For more detailed information about the saltmarshes of Morecambe Bay, click here to download our saltmarsh factsheet. The factsheet is aimed at A-level students and answers some of the most frequently asked questions. It covers a range of subjects including geology, geography and flora.

Information about Spartina anglica and the current management of Spartina at Grange-over-Sands are also available.