What a ******* liberty......the EA

I came across this elsewhere. Now I don't know about you but this attitude by the EA is a bloody disgrace and an affront to me as a licence payer.
I pay you (EA) to protect the water environment and the fish that live in it from harm.
You had these two banged to rights and did nothing!
You left it to us, the Angling Trust membership to take action that you should have done.

Remind me again what I pay my licence fee for?


Two brothers, who were taken to Court by Fish Legal, the legal arm of the Angling Trust, on behalf of the Gopsall Fishing Club, for dredging the River Sence in Leicestershire during the spawning season, yesterday gave the Court a binding undertaking never to dredge the river again.

Mr W. Rickard and Mr R. Rickard of Willow Brook Nurseries gave their undertakings - or binding promises - at Nuneaton County Court, following the issue of proceedings by Fish Legal.

Gopsall Fishing Club (GFC), which holds the fishing rights to the river, approached Fish Legal in 2008 after the Environment Agency failed to prosecute the brothers despite warning them in advance that they would need to apply for permissions to dredge.

The Agency failed to prosecute even after the brothers admitted that they had done so without seeking permission. Dredging and damaging spawning grounds without permission is an offence under the Local Land Drainage Byelaws and the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1976.

Fish Legal issued proceedings against the brothers, asking the Court for an injunction to prevent further dredging from taking place, but the Defendants agreed to settle the case without the need to go to a full trial.

Mark Owen, secretary of the Gopsall Angling Club commented:

“The Club has won awards from the local wildlife trust and worked closely with Twycross Zoo, the Wild Trout Trust and Natural England in improving the river habitat for fish and other wildlife including kingfishers, otters and barn owls. The timing of the dredging was as bad as could be imagined as it took place during the spawning season. It released sediments which would have settled on top of the clean gravels. It also destroyed bank areas close to an otter holt. The members of the club were therefore angered by the destruction and expected the Environment Agency to take action against the Rickards. However, the Agency decided inexplicably to drop the case against them. Now, however, we are reassured the undertaking which has been given should protect our fishery in the future.”

Justin Neal, solicitor at Fish Legal, said:

“The Environment Agency – the body charged with protecting rivers such as the Sence - simply failed to enforce against the brothers despite warning them not to dredge the river and even after obtaining admissions under caution that the brothers had done so.

One would hope that, in future, the Agency will take a tougher approach against those who damage rivers, but if it doesn’t the Angling Trust and Fish Legal will be there to do the job.”

---------- Post added at 02:11 ---------- Previous post was at 00:44 ----------

This blatant disregard of enforcement by the EA has so ****** me off, that I've e-mailed the Sec of State for the Environment requesting he investigate why they dropped such an open and shut case, and my MP asking him also to take it up with Hilary Benn ......the B******s!

Maybe thats what the EA are for now just the licence (talk about towing the party line) & the Angling Trust is in place to pursue legal action on all kinds of offenders!

Makes you sick doesnt it.

Cheers,

William

More comment, and links to Fish Legal news stories (20th August).

William Pastuszka said:

Maybe thats what the EA are for now just the licence (talk about towing the party line) & the Angling Trust is in place to pursue legal action on all kinds of offenders!

Makes you sick doesnt it.

Cheers,

William

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Yes, towing the party line!

No doubt acting on instructions from Gordon Brown et al!

On the river Wear the EA actually gave permission for a stretch of river to be dredged to deepen the channel for the Durham Regatta, only weeks before big numbers of chub had migrated there prior to spawning.

I contacted the EA BEFORE the dredging and was told that it (EA) had surveyed the area and did not consider it would be a problem.


"Hi John

I'm responding to your e-mail re. the "dredging" by the rowing club.

I have been involved with this application from a fisheries perspective and can assure you that the work being carried out will not be detrimental to fish or fisheries. I have assessed the small area they wish to deepen and it is not a spawning location and it has relatively poor habitat value.

There is however some good marginal habitat for fry and juvenile lamprey and we put a condition on the work that this margin could not be deepened. I also walked the stretch from the rowing club down to Framwellgate weir to examine if there was any risk to downstream spawning fish from suspended silts and concluded, due to the ponded nature of the reach, there was negligible risk.

In summary, we have allowed them to take the top off of a silty/gravel bar to a depth of 750mm. The area we are allowing to be deepened has been much reduced from the original application. The work has been facilitated to allow the rowing regatta to go ahead."

The last day of the open season, just a few days before I received the above reply, this stretch of river produced several good catches of chub up to a fantastic 148lb!

The rowers of course pay a hell of a lot more to the EA to safegaurd our rivers than we anglers do, dont they

Why should we be surprised that the EA have done what all government departments do, nothing. Organisations are set up to protect all manner of things such as birds, animals, children and in the EA case the environment but most if not all end up just being an organisation running themselves but not having the time or money to do the very thing they were set up to do.

They get away with it because in the main the nation shows very little interest in any of them, how many people apart from a few anglers will take any notice of this incident for instance? Not many I will wager.

Im with you badun

john m h said:

"Hi John

I'm responding to your e-mail re. the "dredging" by the rowing club.

I have been involved with this application from a fisheries perspective and can assure you that the work being carried out will not be detrimental to fish or fisheries. I have assessed the small area they wish to deepen and it is not a spawning location and it has relatively poor habitat value.

There is however some good marginal habitat for fry and juvenile lamprey and we put a condition on the work that this margin could not be deepened. I also walked the stretch from the rowing club down to Framwellgate weir to examine if there was any risk to downstream spawning fish from suspended silts and concluded, due to the ponded nature of the reach, there was negligible risk.

In summary, we have allowed them to take the top off of a silty/gravel bar to a depth of 750mm. The area we are allowing to be deepened has been much reduced from the original application. The work has been facilitated to allow the rowing regatta to go ahead."

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John, was this a reasonable response or not? Do you expect always to get your own way? The EA must, by law, consider differing points of view. It is not the EA's fault that boaters [and canoeists] don't have to pay for their privileges. We cannot assault the EA at every turn.

Graham Whatmore said:

Why should we be surprised that the EA have done what all government departments do, nothing. Organisations are set up to protect all manner of things such as birds, animals, children and in the EA case the environment but most if not all end up just being an organisation running themselves but not having the time or money to do the very thing they were set up to do.

They get away with it because in the main the nation shows very little interest in any of them, how many people apart from a few anglers will take any notice of this incident for instance? Not many I will wager.

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Graham you may well be right, but it is the insidiousness of such creep that allows them to get away with this. If no one complains and makes a noise about it (and we live in a world of those who shout loudest get action), the tide of creep will continue.

We then arrive at a point where little or no action is ever being taken against the despoilers of the environment, and we are back in the dark days that you and I can remember oh so well.

To this end here's Sec of State Hilary Benn's e-mail address
Hilary.Benn@defra.gsi.gov.uk
It take 5 minutes of you time to write an e-mail saying you are appalled at the lack of action over this by the EA and requesting he investigates WHY they failed to bring them to book.

klik2change

I do not assault the EA at every turn, far from it, but the EA in my area seem to have a bias towards rowers/paddlers. If it had been a salmoid issue I can assure you its response would have been totally different.
God, they even negotiated away our fishing rights with riparian owners without even having the courtesy to involve/inform anglers

The reply I received was an outright brush-off; I believe I have every right to complain when the EA falls down on one its major charges i.e. protecting fisheries.

Hilary Benn takes not one jot of notice Phil; I copied him in to a complaint I, and the representatives of 1000's of NE coarse anglers, have made to the EA about the disproportionate number of game angling interest on the NE RFERAC's, I still await a response...I'll not hold my breath

John that's not my experience mate! I complained to him about water leaks running for weeks in my area and the associated effects it would have on the wider environment. He investigated it and agreed with most of the points I made.

The WA then wrote to apologise to me for the delay in dealing with it. And since then leaks in my area are fixed pretty quick now.

Someone really got there arse kicked somewhere along the line that's for sure :0)

It's also helpful to cc your MP in the loop and ask him to take it up with him. :0)

I have no faith in the EA whatsoever. The way they dealt with a pretty severe pollution incident in a small local river of mine nailed the cap on my opinion of them. They did nothing but a few token jestures and apparantly have no intensions of re stocking the river............they're a waste of space in my opinion and are mereley just another money making buisness rather than a conservation organisation !

...so write your local MP. I agree with Bad One in this, at least. In my experience MPs try hard to get things done. Even tories! [well, some of them].

klik2change said:

...so write your local MP. I agree with Bad One in this, at least. In my experience MPs try hard to get things done. Even tories! [well, some of them].

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Absolutely right, this is what your MP is for, and they are surprisingly supportive and active when approached.

You never know he/she could be an angler too!

klik2change said:

John, was this a reasonable response or not? Do you expect always to get your own way? The EA must, by law, consider differing points of view. It is not the EA's fault that boaters [and canoeists] don't have to pay for their privileges. We cannot assault the EA at every turn.

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I don't think it was a reasonable response!!......i think it was a typical reply from a civil servant type of smile in your face idiot.......anglers know where the gathering grounds are.

Whilst the EA do so little for our cash we can damn well assault them whenever we see fit!

Perhaps HB didn't get the e-mail Phil.

I have used my MP in the past, and SHE has usually got things sorted, and I give her credit when she does (see and scroll down the news section on the Durham City AC link, rubbish on the Wear weirs)

She actually managed to get the EA, City and County Councils to resolve a problem that each one of them said it wasn't their responsibility.

We seem to be having a different story emerge, from the usual one about MPs, don't we? About time too! I have had good service when asked, from both Labour and Tory MPs over the years.

The bad one said:

Remind me again what I pay my licence fee for?

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The EA Fisheries department. Unfortunately the solicitors are not part of that.

James, and the fisheries department I expect them to prosecute offenders, with what was an open and shut case and they failed me and every other angler who pays that licence fee!

Or are you suggesting the solicitors are a law unto themselves and argued that that case couldn't be won through the courts?

If that's the case, then the individual(s) who made that decision should be dismissed. I as a forced customer don't want such an incompetent taking such decisions on my behalf. If such work is contracted out to some solicitors chambers then the contract should be terminated for bad advice.

---------- Post added at 00:39 ---------- Previous post was at 00:10 ----------

You know last week I had a drink with a guy who works for another Govt. Quango involved in environmental protection. The conversation came round to his job and Envo protection, his comments were quite illuminating about the upper eclons. He said to a man, they were all corporate carrier men and didn't know one that would make a decision that would challenge or push the boundaries of protection. Always the corporate party line they came out with.

I guess the same pervasiveness is now in the EA, what a disgrace! But unlike the Quango he works for we pay twice (once as tax payer and once as licence holder) for the pleasure of them having us over backwards.