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A collaborative project was set up to monitor the performance of a new oyster growing system in a high energy environment, the Solway coastline, to investigate the performance of the system and to monitor any environmental changes that might be associated with its placement. The project suffered from serious losses of experimental trials and available growth data that is limited. Solway Marine Oysters have learnt a great deal about how to manage the system and there are indicationsfrom the data that regular sorting and redistribution of the oysters to optimize their size. The oysters produced are of good shape and free of any epibionts. A measurable change in the sediment and fauna associated with the location of the line was detected but whether this was due to the presence of the fixing posts, the growing bags themselves or other changes is not certain. Changes in the fauna were most likely related to the slight changes in the sediment present. The value of thetraining opportunity to one of the Solway Marine Oysters staff is acknowledged and there is an ongoing cooperation between the company and BST Ltd to further improve the operation of the system.