Campaigners against the dredging of the Goodwin Sands have labelled Dover Harbour Boards’s responses to the Marine Management Organisation as inadequate.

The Save Our Sands campaign group held their latest public meeting at The Astor Theatre on Saturday following the reopening of the MMO’s public consultation until November 16.

Member Fiona Punter updated a larger than expected turnout on the status of the campaign to date. She encouraged everyone to keep writing to the MMO and sharing their petition.

She said: “The battle for the Sands is not over yet. It is essential that we write back to the MMO during the second public consultation period.”

Dover Harbour Board hopes to dig up 2.5 million cubic metres for materials to use in its £120m Dover Western Docks Revival project.

Their licence application was submitted to the MMO in mid-May with the completed environmental statement and supporting impact studies.

Following the statutory 42-day consultation period which began in June, the MMO requested some further information and Dover Harbour Board says it has provided this.

Goodwin Sands SOS are now in the process of reading through the new responses prior to submitting their own representation.

They are appealing for more professional support from people in the environmental sector to advise them.

Ms Punter said: “Dover Harbour Board and their advisors are putting up a smoke-screen of inadequate responses and we must all make use of this important opportunity to maintain pressure on them.”

Esme Chilton from the SOS campaign says one of the main issues with the proposed dredging is the existence of so many shipwrecks, the graves of mariners and Battle of Britain pilots.

She said: “As a result of much advice from national environmental agencies, we believe that to stop the dredge we must continue to strongly question DHB’s morality when it comes to destroying war graves for profit.

“Dover Harbour Board is not going to give up easily on this – they have too much money invested.”

The campaign petition, which asks the MMO to reject the dredging licence application has nearly reached 11,000 signatures and will be delivered to No 10 Downing Street on Monday.

To respond to the consultation email: marine.consents@marinemanagement.org.uk quoting reference MLA/2016/00227.

A Dover Harbour Board spokesman said: “The Ministry of Defence is a consultee and has been included in the application process since the beginning.

“Experts have surveyed the dredge areas and identified exclusion zones for known archaeological sites. In the unlikely event of anything being discovered it will immediately trigger the industry protocol of mapping, recording and establishing an exclusion zone.

“The board continues to work with the statutory bodies to ensure that in the event of the licence being granted best practice procedures are employed throughout the dredge periods.”

The SOS petition is at http://tinyurl.com/jgud65a