A battle to stop the Goodwin Sands being dredged goes on despite new government protection.

They have from today been designated a Marine Conservation Zone.

But controversial plans to dredge of small part of them can still go on because the work is now licensed, protesters say.

The pressure group Goodwin Sands SOS (Save Our Sands), will therefore continue their fight at a court hearing next week.

Joanna Thomson, co-ordinator, said: "It's unacceptable that a conservation zone should be subjected to an activity from which it has to recover.

"Dredging is the most intrusive of seabed activities and if this proposal is allowed to go ahead, it would make a complete mockery of the whole MCZ project and prove that it's absolutely meaningless."

The port of Dover wants to dredge a small section of the sands for its Dover Western Docks Revival development.

GSSOS is fighting this because it fears damage to the environment and disturbance of war graves.

A licence was given for the dredging by the government's Marine Management Organisation last July.

That decision is now being contested in a judicial review next Wednesday.

The case, brought by GSSOS, will be heard in London's High Court.

It argues that the Sands are the graveyard of many shipwrecks and military aircraft crash sites and home to a colony of 500 seals.

Six Protected Wreck sites lie within the zone.

The Port of Dover wants to dig three million tonnes of aggregate, and argues it is only 0.22% of the sands. It says the material is needed for its DWDR, which it says would help create jobs in the area.

The Sands are among 41 new MCZs announced by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) today.

The status means that it is an area where species and habitats are protected in a Blue Belt around the English coast.

Defra explains that the status means that specific features within the 277 sq km (141 sq m) area off Sandwich Bay and Deal are protected.

A statement from Defra said: "Goodwin Sands is a large, dynamic and constantly changing area of sand and coarse sediments off the coastline of Kent that is regularly exposed at low tide, providing an important haul out site for harbour seals and grey seals, and good foraging grounds for bird species.

"Around the Sands themselves, the site includes deeper areas of subtidal coarse sediment that are known to be of particularly high biodiversity.

"The areas of sand and sediment protected by this site are all subtidal, rather than areas of sandbanks which are exposed intermittently during the tidal cycle."

Defra says that the site also contains Ross worm reefs and blue mussel beds.

Both are dependent on the underlying habitat.

The habitat supports a range of species also including cup corals, anemones, soft corals, sponges, sea squirts and red algaes, as well as commercially important shellfish and fish.

Defra says that now that this site has been designated some activities may need additional management and regulations may need to change if new evidence becomes available.

Management measures will be implemented at sites most at risk of damage first, regulating only those activities, whcih have a designated impacted on the designated features.