Greetings!
I found
myself very conflicted when I read about Herefordshire farmer
John Price who was jailed last week for 12 months for illegal
dredging of the River Lugg after prosecution on behalf of the
Environment Agency.
On the
one hand he did a damn stupid thing, ignoring numerous
interventions from the Environment Agency and Natural England to
stop whilst he seemed to be misguidedly well-intentioned in his
efforts which had the support of some in the local community who
feared flooding. On the other hand, we have that regulatory
behemoth the Environment Agency having a man sent to jail for a
transgression which is as nothing compared to the cart and horses
that the water companies drive through Environment Agency
regulations on a daily basis.
Now, I
am not a keen supporter of the belief that the directors of
water companies should be sent to jail – ultimately all it will
do is send badly needed talent and investors away from the sector
– but it strikes me as a total iniquity that Environment Agency
can find the gumption to wave the jail stick to go after the
small fry but cannot go after the big fry. Let me ask you this.
This time next year will the River Lugg be a more degraded river
because of a) John Prices’ dredging or b) the polluting
activities of Welsh Water and Severn Trent Water?
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The
River Lugg stretch before the dredging .....
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We have
to be clear the Environment Agency is a very strange beast. It is
always claiming to be skint with inadequate ‘resources’ to police
our rivers to a standard any decent country has the right to expect.
But you have to ask what scale of resources do they require to do
their job? There are close to 11,000 employees with an annual
expenditure of £1.9 billion pounds, most of which comes from you
and I the taxpayer. This is no toothless tiger as the rap sheet
for John Price shows, with five charges including “causing the
discharge of silt into the River Lugg, which can smother and
suffocate aquatic life.” with a possible sentence of six months
custody or unlimited fines. Would you have not thought silt was a
component of just about every sewage spill?
As you
all know I have little love for the Environment Agency; it seems
obsessed with process – let me give you a small example. A few
weeks ago, I had to change the administration address for a
stocking permit. You would have thought this a simple task as
nothing was changing in regard to where, when and how many fish
were being stocked.
It did
not get off to a great start. The first automated reply to my
email explained to me that the Environment Agency were very busy
and that I may have to wait 20 (yes, twenty!) working days for a
response. To be fair the super-efficient administrator in the
Huntingdon office (official title: Technical Officer, Fish
Movements Team, National Monitoring: Fish and Ecology) came back
to me much quicker but explained, whilst admitting all the
details remained the same, that I would have to reapply for
the same permit for approval by the local team in Hampshire. I
have no idea exactly how much work this required but I suspect
that collectively this involved dozens of emails and a good few
hours by us all, me included. And for what? The permit was
reissued so we could all return to exactly the same place from
which we started.
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....
John Price immediately after the dredging ......
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The
saddest thing about this, and the dredging farmer, is that
despite the Environment Agency being supremely capable of
building a pointless bureaucracy and having John Price
languishing in a cell our rivers will not be getting any cleaner
any time soon. Nor does there seem any appetite to fundamentally
change the regulatory oversight for our rivers and coastline.
I really
don’t know how many more years of failure it will take before
government wakes up to the fact that the Environment Agency is
plainly not up to the task. Of course, there are bits of it, and
people in it, who should be admired and supported but overall, it
plainly fails. It is time, perhaps championed by the new chairman
Alan Lovell, to have an honest conversation with government to separate
out water from the general remit of the Agency (fly tipping,
atomic waste, coastal defence, flooding etc) to create a new
body, free from past failings and inadequacies, which will have a
laser focus on pure rivers and coastal waters.
Maybe
that thought might find its way into a party manifesto come the
next general election?
PS Sorry
I did not to bring you my How we can win the pollution war; next
time I promise.
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......
and how it is today.
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Bobbies on the bank
Wiltshire
Police certainly like to march to the beat of their own drum;
some years ago, they turned off all the speed cameras much to the
delight of most Moonrakers. That was easily understood, less so
the latest declaration from the County Constabulary:
“The new
framework [for the rural crime team] will provide more scrutiny
around the suitability of our officers, staff and volunteers to
work within the unit. It sets out key principles to ensure staff
do not have personal links to hunts past or present, do not have
links to any anti-hunt groups past or present and requires staff
to disclose links to any rural based hobby or initiative that
could potentially call into question their policing
impartiality.”
Rural
based hobby? Are we talking about full disclosure for anglers,
bird watchers and ramblers in the force? It puts me in mind of
that skit from Not The Nine O’Clock News where the senior
policeman Rowan Atkinson questions police constable Griff
Rhys-Jones about a dubious arrest record of one particular person
117 times, a Mr Vincent Kdogo, for such misdemeanours as ‘
looking at me in a funny way.” or “having an offensive
wife.” I can see it now as hordes of tweed capped, corduroy
wearers are bought up in front of Salisbury Magistrates on 'walking
in the manner of someone intending to blend in to the
landscape." charges.
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Of
course, there is a small irony to all this taking place in
Wiltshire, where the locals take a dim view of the intelligence
of the authorities who reciprocate in kind, at least according to
the moonraker legend.
So goes
the tale that originates from the 1700s, when smuggling was
widespread in the county. A group of smugglers had hidden some
illegal barrels of brandy in a pond. A couple of tax men got wind
of this so waited around one moonlit night to catch them. As the
smugglers were attempting to retrieve their brandy with rakes the
officers approached. But they succeeded in convincing the
excisemen that they were drunk, confused or both - or merely
simple 'yokels' - by claiming to be scraping the surface of the
water in the hope of retrieving cheese from the moon. The tax
men, taking them to be all three, left them to it.
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Cartoon of the Week
You know
an issue is taking hold when the Sunday Times feature a cartoon
of this nature in their comment section opposite the leader page.
Fantastic work from Peter Brookes.
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These May flies could be yours
It is the
last few days of April so I’m going to be doing an extra, but
mercifully brief, Newsletter to you all next week to announce the
Feedback Draw winner because I have an exciting prize for this
and every month of the coming season.
We have
teamed up with Kent fly tyer Nigel Nunn to produce a special
monthly selection. But this is no ordinary pack of flies: Nigel
has tied his choice of flies which are presented on a hand drawn
and signed card. And that is not all, as they say in the best of
infomercials. The selection is specifically tied to use in May,
hence my eagerness to get them in the post at the earliest
opportunity to the lucky winner. I’ll be repeating this through
the season with the May winner getting June flies and so on.
Don’t
forget to fill in your feedback form here and you
can see more of Nigel’s flies at www.nigelnunnflies.com
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Mayfly:
coming to a river near you soon
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Quiz
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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) Name
one other member of the original cast of Not The Nine
O'Clock News?
2) Who
landed on this day in 1770 at Botany Bay in Australia?
3) Who
played James Bond in the 1979 film Moonraker?
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Have a
good Bank Holiday weekend.
Best
wishes,
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Quiz answers:
1) Mel
Smith or Pamela Stephenson
2) Captain
Cook
3) Roger
Moore
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TIME IS
PRECIOUS. USE IT FISHING
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The Mill,
Heathman Street, Nether Wallop,
Stockbridge,
England SO20 8EW United Kingdom
01264
781988
www.fishingbreaks.co.uk
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