Tourism minister John Penrose has announced that 11 sites across the UK and its overseas territories have been shortlisted for potential World Heritage Site nomination.

England's Lake District and the Forth Rail Bridge in Scotland are two of the sites that are to comprise the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's (DCMS) Tentative List. Chatham Dockyard and its Defences, Kent; Creswell Crags, Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire; Gorham's Cave Complex, Gibraltar; and Jodrell Bank Observatory have been shortlisted.

Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof, Shetland; the Slate Industry of North Wales; the Flow Country, Scotland; and the Turks and Caicos Islands, West Indies, are also part of the list, as well as the island of St Helena. Meanwhile, two sites under consideration by UNESCO - Twin Monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow and Darwin's Landscape Laboratory, Kent - will join the Tentative List too.

Penrose said: "The 11 places that make up the new UK Tentative List are fantastic examples of both our cultural and natural heritage." The new Tentative List is to be submitted to UNESCO with the aim of nominating new sites from 2012, although the DCMS said there would not necessarily be a new nomination every year.

Image: Jodrell Bank Observatory - visitbritainimages.com