Yachtsmen will learn tomorrow the full details of a two year study into which areas of coastal England and Wales should become Marine Conservation Zones.

The bodies which make up the Marine Conservation Zone Project are publishing their findings into why they think 127 areas of coastline should become controlled zones. A final decision into which of these areas will actually become MCZs or Reference Areas (RAs) with patrol boats and wardens will not be taken until 2012.

The areas under the microscope are: an area of deep water rocky seabed off Brighton; a reef of chalk off Bembridge, Isle of Wight and the seabed off Selsey Bill; a strip of Dorset coastline from Broad Bench to Kimmeridge Bay; areas of the St George’s Channel and the Irish Sea and off the mouth of Cheshire’s River Dee; areas in the North Sea including the Aln Estuary and Swallow Sand.

The idea of the zones is to protect species such as sea horses, sea-weed, worms and corals and also their habitats.

A provisional zone in Studland Bay, which was designed to protect sea-horse breeding, invited huge controversy from yachtsmen.