I
Ian Cloke
Guest
A fishery syndicate which illegally dredged vital spawning grounds of a stretch of a historic Berkshire chalk river was find ?4,500 on 18 January after pleading guilty to three offences. On top of the fine, the company was also ordered to pay ?3,216 costs to the Environment Agency.
Reading Magistrates? Court heard how the Maidenhatch Syndicate Ltd illegally dredged gravels, grits and other materials from the bed of the River Pang without the consent of the Agency, contrary to the Thames Land Drainage Bye-Laws and Water Resources Act.
The syndicate was also guilty for wilfully disturbing the bed of the river on which spawn or spawning fish might have been, and admitted to introducing 200 mixed brown and rainbow trout to the river without consent from the Agency on 11 May 2006.
A local resident in Tidmarsh contacted the Agency in April last year to say that a fishing syndicate had dredged a section of the River Pang near to Maidenhatch Farm in Tidmarsh.
The River Pang, thought to have been the inspiration for Pangbourne resident and writer Kenneth Grahame's ?Wind in the Willows?, is an environmentally sensitive chalk-stream providing an important habitat for trout, grayling, aquatic fauna and flora, and other wildlife including water voles.
Officers went to the site and found a digger had just completed the excavation of a number of trenches along the centre of the course of the Pang. Ten trenches had been excavated along the river, and were later measured at from eight-and-a-half to 25.23 metres in length, approximately a metre in width and three-quarters-of-a-metre to a metre in depth.
The excavated chalk, gravel and grit had been dumped along the edge of the channel line of the stream. The bank and vegetation had also been disturbed where the digger entered the river, and where it had to be recovered by a larger digger when it became stuck.
The officers spoke to a machine operator at the site who confirmed that he had excavated the troughs on behalf of a ?Mr Stacey of Andover? who had also hired the machinery needed to do the works.
As the officers were leaving the site Mr Stacey arrived and confirmed that he was a member of a fishing syndicate, but denied having authorised or arranged for the works to be carried out.
The company later admitted that it owned the stretch of the river and that a board meeting had authorised the works.
Conservation, fisheries and development control officers from the Agency visited the site in May to assess the damage caused by the works, which were considered to be severe.
The excavations had removed shallow gravel banks of the type needed by the grayling and trout for spawning, which also provides a suitable habitat for the newly hatched fish fry. The trenches were already filling with silt further damaging the spawning grounds.
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Reading Magistrates? Court heard how the Maidenhatch Syndicate Ltd illegally dredged gravels, grits and other materials from the bed of the River Pang without the consent of the Agency, contrary to the Thames Land Drainage Bye-Laws and Water Resources Act.
The syndicate was also guilty for wilfully disturbing the bed of the river on which spawn or spawning fish might have been, and admitted to introducing 200 mixed brown and rainbow trout to the river without consent from the Agency on 11 May 2006.
A local resident in Tidmarsh contacted the Agency in April last year to say that a fishing syndicate had dredged a section of the River Pang near to Maidenhatch Farm in Tidmarsh.
The River Pang, thought to have been the inspiration for Pangbourne resident and writer Kenneth Grahame's ?Wind in the Willows?, is an environmentally sensitive chalk-stream providing an important habitat for trout, grayling, aquatic fauna and flora, and other wildlife including water voles.
Officers went to the site and found a digger had just completed the excavation of a number of trenches along the centre of the course of the Pang. Ten trenches had been excavated along the river, and were later measured at from eight-and-a-half to 25.23 metres in length, approximately a metre in width and three-quarters-of-a-metre to a metre in depth.
The excavated chalk, gravel and grit had been dumped along the edge of the channel line of the stream. The bank and vegetation had also been disturbed where the digger entered the river, and where it had to be recovered by a larger digger when it became stuck.
The officers spoke to a machine operator at the site who confirmed that he had excavated the troughs on behalf of a ?Mr Stacey of Andover? who had also hired the machinery needed to do the works.
As the officers were leaving the site Mr Stacey arrived and confirmed that he was a member of a fishing syndicate, but denied having authorised or arranged for the works to be carried out.
The company later admitted that it owned the stretch of the river and that a board meeting had authorised the works.
Conservation, fisheries and development control officers from the Agency visited the site in May to assess the damage caused by the works, which were considered to be severe.
The excavations had removed shallow gravel banks of the type needed by the grayling and trout for spawning, which also provides a suitable habitat for the newly hatched fish fry. The trenches were already filling with silt further damaging the spawning grounds.
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