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Over centuries the treacherous Goodwin Sands off Kent \u2013 known as the great \u201cship swallower\u201d \u2013 has entombed more than 2,000 shipwrecks, dozens of second world war aircraft and is the final resting place of thousands. Shakespeare described it as \u201ca very dangerous flat, and fatal\u201d.<\/p>

In 1703, five vessels were sucked into its shifting sands during a storm, including the English warship HMS Northumberland, which only now is yielding its well-preserved secrets.<\/a><\/p>

Campaigners fear this unique area is now at risk from destructive dredging for building sand and aggregate. They are appealing to the crown estate, which owns the seabed, and calling on King Charles for support, to protect an area rich in maritime and cultural heritage.<\/p>

Writing to Charles, as a \u201ccommitted conservationist, head of the armed forces and as a beneficiary of the crown estate\u2019s commercial activities\u201d, the Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust has asked him to encourage the crown estate to remove the sands from its list of potential marine aggregate extraction sites. The king\u2019s public duties are paid by the sovereign grant, calculated on a percentage of crown estate profits.<\/p>

\u201cDoes he know where this money is coming from? It\u2019s coming from licences to develop the seabed without proper protections for what they are going to find,\u201d said Joanna Thomson, the trust\u2019s chair.<\/p>

A response from a palace aide referred it to the crown estate. \u201cWe made clear in our letter it was because we had got nowhere with the crown estate that we were contacting the king, so the reply was rather frustrating,\u201d said Thomson.<\/p>

The Goodwin Sands seabed is littered with history. As well as shipwrecks, second world war allied and axis planes crashed in the area long seen as a profitable source of marine aggregate, the trust said.<\/p>

A licence to extract 2.5m tonnes<\/a> was approved in 2018 for a Dover Harbour Board development, although it was eventually sourced from elsewhere. Marine aggregate extraction licences are granted by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), but it is the crown estate that decides what development occurs on the seabed, said campaigners. They are \u201cdisappointed\u201d at its \u201cflat refusal\u201d to guarantee no dredging of the 10-mile sandbank, which has had marine protected area (MPA) status since 2019, and acts as a sea defence to the unstable coastline.<\/p>

Historian and TV presenter Dan Snow, who has dived on the Goodwins, said: \u201cThere are some extraordinary wrecks down there. We are obviously all very worried and sad to think it could be just mined and a lot of that would be destroyed.\u201d<\/p>

Snow described it has a \u201cmagical subsea landscape\u201d.<\/p>

\u201cEvery period of our history over the last 2,000 years has left a rich legacy there, which is unusual, probably unique,\u201d he added.<\/p>

The crown estate said in a statement: \u201cThere are currently no plans for aggregate licences in the Goodwin Sands area. However, we are unable to provide blanket, permanent exemptions for any part of the seabed from this or other sectors, unless predicated by an organisation with regulatory or other relevant responsibility, or by a national designation such as a highly protected marine area (HPMA).\u201d<\/p>

While the MMO grants marine licences for dredging, the crown estate, as landowner, must license or lease the seabed and can decline to do so and not leave the matter solely to MMO marine licensing, according to Michael Williams, visiting professor of law at Plymouth University and an expert on law relating to foreshore, seabed and underwater cultural heritage.<\/p>

\u201cThe crown estate can\u2019t treat it as though the Goodwins have a blanket designation, but what they can do is have a policy. You can say this is a highly sensitive archeological area and therefore we will tend not to grant applications unless there\u2019s exceptional circumstances. And that\u2019s what public bodies do for culturally sensitive areas all the time.\u201d<\/p>