Right to Ruin

 

Greetings!   There has been much in the press recently about the right to roam. All manners of people, for a whole variety of reasons, believe the concept of private property should be upended in the pursuit of public access.   It is certainly an interesting argument that mostly seems to rely on the concept of scale. If you own an acre you seem to avoid the ire of the right to roamers but if you own a thousand, or heaven forbid ten thousand acres, then your land is their land so goes the argument.   Of course, much of the PR puffery put out by roamers presents the vision of a green and pleasant land where unfettered access has no consequences. Actually, therein lies part of the conundrum: much of Britain is so very beautiful because it has remained relatively untouched for so long. Ask any warden at any National Park and they will tell you how hard it is to balance access with the preservation of fragile natural resources. Let me tell you of one such place where an ancient right to roam has turned a tiny river into a 21st century aquatic racetrack for 4x4s, quad bikes and scramblers.

 

 

This is what happens when a river becomes a road......

 

The River Meon, a small chalkstream in east Hampshire, flows for a large part of its length through the South Downs National Park. Like all rivers in Britain, it is prey to the usual dangers to its existence – pollution, abstraction, farming and urbanisation but recently in the village of Droxford a whole new menace has arrived.   The current problem is that many centuries ago carters had the right to use a 1/8th mile section of the river to bring corn to Droxford Mill by horse and cart; the river was effectively a road but when the mill closed way back in the early part of the last century, so the use ended. However, the river by some unfortunate quirk, remained classified by statute as a U road, everyone having a right to use the unpaved road i.e. the river in the same way they can use any road on foot, bike or machine.

 

 

Watch the video of how a river becomes a road

 

For over a hundred years this didn’t matter; the river returned to its natural state with a pleasant footpath walk beside the river and a paddling spot for generations of children. I am not joking – I was one of those children.   However, the upsurge in interest for off-roading in the past 20 years, the participants of which scour Ordnance Survey maps to track down every ancient right, are now exploiting what can only be called a loophole in the law. Almost daily 4x4s, quad bikes and scrambling motorbikes race up and down the river destroying the banks, churning the riverbed into a lifeless stone highway whilst destroying the quiet enjoyment of those who live and walk beside the river.

 

 

.... and this is the same river as a mile upstream

 

Now you would have thought this would be an easy fix – the road/river was never intended for this purpose so close it off. But all the bodies who might have the clout to do something about this – South Downs National Park, Environment Agency, Natural England, Hampshire County Council and Winchester County Council- have offered kind words of sympathy but no action so far. My own immediate hope was that our friends at the Environment Agency would be all over this citing the Salmon and Freshwater Fishery Act 1975 which protects the spawning areas for trout and salmon, but apparently not.   The only good news is that a group of determined people working with the Meon Valley Partnership are lobbying hard for the closure of what is officially called the U189 Droxford Splash Route (River Meon).   I wish them every success because we must not let the right to roam morph into the right to ruin.

 

 

Campaigners: Adam Faulkner, Richard Osmond & Anthony McEwen

 

 

A circular firing squad   Well, I was highly delighted to see that head of Ofwat, after his preposterous defence of the water companies on Radio 4, is having his 15 minutes of fame. As I have numerously written Ofwat was long ago captured by producer interest, and he ably proved this.   It is a fascinating situation we find ourselves in. The government issues press releases highlighting our ‘world class regulation’. Ofwat says the water companies are doing a fine job. The water companies say they are doing a fine job except for those pesky regulators who won’t let them do more. The Environment Agency say they are monitoring the situation but cannot do more because they have no money. The head of the Environment Agency wants to put everyone in jail because, presumably, none of the fault lies with the Environment Agency and nobody else is doing a good job despite what they say to the contrary.   If it wasn’t for the massive destruction being wrought to our rivers and coastline on a daily basis you’d be tempted to laugh.

 

 

 

Fire!   If things had turned out a tiny bit differently, I could well have been writing this from …. well, I don’t know where as two weeks ago today the Fishing Breaks office was almost consumed by a fire in the cornfield that backs onto the office that was being harvested at the time.   It was an average Friday afternoon as we headed towards the weekend when someone popped into the office to say there was a fire on the hill. That explains the smell of burning we thought, so Sarah headed out by way of curiosity returning five minutes later with a stricken look. ‘Its really bad’, she said calling the fire brigade.   I went out to check the fire from the garden of our immediate neighbour who was in the greatest danger. At that moment, with the sirens already in the distance and the wind taking the blaze away from us it looked under control. In truth, it was more fascinating than dangerous. Then suddenly the wind changed, whipping up a storm of fire, smoke and a fear-inducing crackling noise as the flames swept towards us.

 

 

The local farmers, who have an emergency support network, having downed tools elsewhere began to arrive with harrows and bowsers to douse the flames and create firebreaks. All credit to them as they did terrific job in dangerous conditions, at times their machines becoming engulfed in smoke and flames. Most of the time they managed to escape in fast reverse but ultimately two tractors, a trailer and a harrow, making for an insurance claim of some £350,000, were lost though nobody was hurt.   I did seriously worry for our neighbours, the flames licking at the garden fence at one point, but it was only when the flames went on past them towards the Fishing Breaks office end of the field that I began to worry for ourselves. But mercifully the work of the firebreaks, bowsers and with a slight change of the wind the fire ran out of the raw material of straw and standing corn to burn itself out.

 

 

 

Two weeks later, with the smell ash still hanging around, I count ourselves lucky.

 

 

 

Quiz The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter.   It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page.   1)     Who saw what in the sky on this day in 1682?   2)     When did the Countryside & Rights of Way Act, that created the right to roam over 8% of English land, become law?   3)     How many Bank Holidays in England & Wales will there be in 2023?

 

 

 

Have a happy Bank Holiday weekend.    Best wishes,

 

 

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

 

 

 

Quiz answers:   1)     English astronomer Edmond Halley first observes the comet named after him 2)     2000 3)     Eight. Nine in Scotland

The drought of '76 vs. '22 . Why it is worse this time around

 

Greetings!   My most vivid memory of the drought of 1976 has nothing to do with rivers but mostly to do with setting a field on fire on our family farm.   My own bloody fault – I was determined to have a bonfire to burn up the detritus from a fallen tree. I watched in horror as flames spread across the field through the grass like red hot larva down the side of a volcano. Fortunately, by the time I managed to string together every hose in the farmyard, it had burnt itself out without too much collateral damage except perhaps to my ears as I was, how shall I say this politely, verbally admonished by my father.   But back to the present. As far as the current drought is concerned in respect of the chalkstreams it is hard to give a direct line of comparison between ’76 and ’22 – there really isn’t enough accurate data to compare river flows and much of what people will tell you is anecdotal or, frankly, ill informed. I’ve seen pictures of dried-up rivers which are winterbournes, namely rivers that only flow in the winter and spring even in the wettest of years.

 

 

A mile from the source of the Itchen. Not a winterbourne!

 

The fact is you must treat some of the hysteria for what it is – headline grabbing by the media and special interest groups. So, in an attempt to bring some reason here are the headlines to what I consider the major issue of the day, namely the mismatch of water demand and supply. Let us start with population.   Currently the population of the UK is 67.5m compared with 56.2m in 1976 – that is an increase of 11.3m people or 20.1%. In the same period our level of water consumption has risen by 80%. Back then the average household water usage per person per day was 84 litres; today it stands at 152 litres. So, if you do the maths though our population has only (sic) increased by 20.1% the demand has increased by 117%.   Now, we might bitch and scream about how much water we are using but it’s a simple fact of life that for the foreseeable future our homes and lifestyles have radically changed. In truth, we are well down the league table in terms of water use, even compared to our European neighbours e.g. France at 290 litres and nowhere near the USA at 575 litres and Australia at 460 litres who stand at one and two in the international table.   We obviously all know in ’22 that our water supply industry is in private hands, so I’ll take a slight side-track to fill you in on who owned what in ’76. At this point we were meant to be on the cusp of a new era of water management with the 1973 Water Act establishing 10 publicly owned regional water authorities for England and Wales that replaced some 170 private and municipal water providers. The plan was for the newly formed regional water authorities to manage water resources and the supply of water on a fully integrated basis operating investment on a cost recovery basis. It was generally accepted that massive spending was required for a nation still largely reliant on Victorian infrastructure.   Did this happen? Well, not really. There was a slight burst of reservoir building but on the whole governments of all stripes shied away from the concept of cost recovery for the new infrastructure required as that entailed sharply increasing consumer water bills. Just as an aside most large commercial water users have private water sources. By the mid-1980’s it was clear that the hoped for investment was not happening so privatisation offered a handy way of offloading future responsibilities from the public to the private sector.   In broad terms we obtain our water from two sources: reservoirs and aquifers. As I’ve written before, for most months of the year, even in a drought year, supply is not a problem as Mother Nature supplies our needs. British rainfall is astonishingly reliable; average rainfall has barely moved over the past three centuries with records going back to the 1700’s.   However, in the summer, and especially in dry years, how much water we have in storage and the ability to shift it around the country, as we do with the electricity grid, with back up from alternate sources such as desalination, becomes hugely important. So, how much of this has happened?   Starting with the last first. Despite this being proposed as a solution in the wake of the ’76 drought only one desalination plant has been built which, if my memory serves me correctly, was to provide water to 300,000 homes in east London. Incredibly it is currently out of commission! The one other that came close to being built was in Hampshire but was cancelled by the new owners of Southern Water last year.   In regard to reservoirs not a single new one has been opened since privatisation in 1989 and in fact, many smaller ones have been sold off by the private water companies largely for housing development. So just let’s think about that: they increase demand for their product whilst at the same time reducing supply. Well done Ofwat. Did you ever spot that? But on a wider national scale of the 47 larger reservoirs of England and Wales, the first in 1888, only six were opened after 1976 that increased storage capacity by 23%. As for a ‘national grid’ of water that is still being talked about with just a few localised schemes in place.   So, ask the question: if your demand has increased by 117% but your supply by 23% where do you get your water from Mr/Mrs Water Company person? From the aquifers of course! And for those of us in the chalkstreams regions we are doubly screwed for there are rarely any reservoirs that serve our regions and certainly no national water grid or desalination plants to help us in our time of greatest need.   The fact is that we are much worse off this time around for the simple fact that we are taking more water from beneath the ground, especially in the chalkstream regions where the fragile headwaters and smaller streams are literally having the life sucked out of them.   And let us not let government, the water companies or the regulators that oversee the water industry use weasel words to shift the blame to climate change. This crisis has been a long time in the making and is squarely on their combined shoulders.

 

 

Roadford - the last reservoir opened since 1989. We just need another twenty......

 

 

That was the month that was July   On Wednesday I had a meeting with a team from Natural England and the Environment Agency on the River Itchen downstream of Winchester.   Now this is not to belittle the magnitude of the current drought but standing by the river you could see all our collective brain cogs whirring – the river looked great! It is an astounding tribute to the geology of the chalkstreams that, despite all that is thrown at them they can still survive.   In truth the middle and lower parts of the bigger chalkstreams such as the Test, Itchen and Avon will get through this period relatively unscathed. The real problems lie with the headwaters of all chalkstreams, including those I mention and smaller chalkstreams everywhere where the drought, combined with massive over abstraction, is crippling.

 

 

As to fishing in July, the secret of success was adapting your expectations and tactics to the conditions. It can be tough. Fish do get picky. We are not conditioned to standing outside all day in heat and sun. But then again, a fish has to eat. So, once you got your head around the situation in front of you there were plenty of great reports especially, and as I inferred above, with the wider and bigger sections are fishing as well as ever.   Well done to Tom Daukes who fished Kanara on the River Itchen in the first week of July winning the monthly Fishing Breaks snood, which is great for keeping you safe from the sun! Everyone else is back in the draw for the end-of-season Hardy reel draw.

 

 

 

Quiz The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter.   It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page.   1)     Who is the person second from the right pictured on this day in 1916 in Paris?   2)     Who was Prime Minster in 1976?   3)     Which is the biggest reservoir in England and Wales?

 

 

 

Have a good, if hot, weekend.    Best wishes,

 

 

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

 

 

 

Quiz answers:   1)     Pablo Picasso. The others l-r Manuel Ortiz de Zarate, Moïse Kisling, Max Jacob and Pâquerette 2)     There were two. Harold Wilson until April and James Callaghan thereafter 3)     Kielder Water opened in 1981 a 1/3rd largest than the next largest, Rutland Water