Controversial plans to dredge the Goodwin Sands have been scaled back.

The Port of Dover, which has faced fierce opposition in its attempts to dig the sandbanks, will now take some of the aggregate from another site.

It says it is still applying to dredge the sands, 7.5 miles away off Deal, but has found an alternative site more than 50 miles away to keep the project on track.

A Port spokesman said: “The Port is continuing with its marine licence application to dredge the Goodwin Sands, which remains the best environmental option.

“However in the interest of meeting programme delivery for the first stage to create an area of significant job opportunities the Port has had to source material from an alternative dredge site.”

The port authority warns that this will have “significant impact on cost” along with a larger carbon footprint as the location is a 180km (112.5 mile) round trip increasing journey time by another 12 hours.

The spokesman added: “Failure to obtain consent for winning material from the Goodwin Sands, which is a 24km (15 mile) round trip and only 6 hours journey time, could cause the people of Dover to lose up to £0.5bn of new jobs and regeneration.”

The other site is north of the Thames Estuary towards Harwich.

Dredging is expected to start there later in September for the first approximately 800,000 cubic metres of aggregate needed.

Joanna Thomson is from the pressure group Goodwin Sands SOS (Save Our Sands) fighting plans to dredge the area.

She told the Mercury: “The harbour board has found a site that is already licensed. This shows that there are credible alternatives to the Goodwin Sands, which we have been saying all along.

“We hope that the harbour board will do all its dredging from that new site. They say it it would cost them more but they should have budgeted for that.”

A total 2.5 million cubic metres of sand is wanted for the £250 million Dover Western Docks Revival development.

The Port of Dover says this would bring hundred of jobs to the town and help in its regeneration.

It also argues that it only ever wanted to dig up 0.22% of the sands.

The harbour board had in May 2016 applied to the government’s Marine Management Organisation to dredge them.

But the controversy had led to the ordering of an unprecedented third public consultation.

This is underway online for 42 days, ending on September 28.

The MMO is expected to make its decision in the last quarter of 2017.

The opposition to the dredging has been led by the tenacious GSSOS, which fears that the digging would cause environmental damage and disturb war graves.

On August 7 the port authority had launched a campaign, Deliver for Dover, to get backing for its work.

It warned that DWDR was the biggest regeneration in Dover for 70 years and dredging the Goodwins would be environmentally better and more cost effective.

People can made their comments to the public consultation via the MMO website marinelicensing.marinemanagement.org.uk using the reference number MLA/2016/OO227.