National Trust reprieve fishing at Mottisfont Abbey

 

Greetings!   I bring you good news. Or what I hope will end up as good news. After a concerted write-in by many of you to the National Trust (huge thanks all), a mention on prime time television and a letter in The Spectator it seems that news of what was happening at Mottisfont Abbey at a local level has filtered all the way up the food chain to the highest levels of the Trust.   The headline is that fly fishing is to return to Mottisfont Abbey. We know this not because of any public announcement but because the replies sent to all that wrote in are clearly singing from the same song sheet.   In summary, the National Trust will be putting the fishing rights out to tender later this year with a view to resuming fishing next year on a non-stocked basis within a wilder management regime with the aim of allowing other activities to happen alongside the fishing interests.

 

F M Halford

 

Frankly, this more than I could have hoped for. Of course, I might disagree with some of the Trust management decisions but ultimately the river does belong to them so they have a perfect right to manage as they see fit. However, in their wider duty to allow those that love fly fishing and all its heritage to still fish in the footsteps of Frederick Halford they have done what is the right thing.   I am in correspondence with the person at the Trust who has overall responsibility for fishing policy at a national level so I will keep you posted.   LATE NEWS Though I am delighted to bring you the news of Mottisfont Abbey it does come with a note of caution as I have heard that the National Trust at Wallington House in Northumberland are ceasing fly fishing on the River Wansbeck with immediate effect with no reason given.   I have seen the email correspondence between the leaseholders of 23 years and the National Trust which follows a similar pattern to that I experienced with long periods of non-communication, frequent changes of personnel and then a decision that comes out of the blue without any explanation as to why that decision has been made even though the email that delivers the coup de grace acknowledges the exemplary nature of the leaseholder as tenant. Just to rub salt into the wound the estate manager then concludes by inviting the now ex-leaseholder to become a volunteer on the estate!

 

 

The great river greenwash   Recently there has been something of a gold rush to buy river assets for purposes other than fishing with the rise of trading in nitrate and phosphate credits. The theory went that you used a floodplain as a pollution ‘sink’ which house builders could buy as an offset to allow planning permission to be granted.   Frankly, I was pretty unhappy with what I saw as a cynical work around to UK and EU legislation enabled by the secretive quango, Natural England. Essentially, nobody was resolving the issue of nitrate and phosphate pollutants – the trading simply represented a giant sweeping-under-the-carpet exercise with plenty of jiggery pokery to boot. I heard tell of pig farms closing to take advantage of the cash bonanza only to reopen a few fields away, ready to repeat the same trick sometime soon.   By coincidence over the weekend someone asked me, setting aside my personal views, what I thought of the offset scheme as an investment. Frankly, I am no financial advisor so I repeated what a local land agent had told me: this is only for the most sophisticated of investor i.e. very risky. But I did add, with great prescience as it turns out, beware the Ministerial pen that, at a stroke, could wipe out the whole industry. And, so it seems, that is exactly what Michael Gove did on Tuesday when he effectively abolished the EU and UK legislation that was driving the need for offset credits.   Am I happy with the change? I think, judging by all comments by the River Trusts, ecology agent provocateurs and the great and the good of the greenery industry, I might be alone in saying I welcome Michael Gove’s decision. I have no desire for more houses in the wrong places but frankly offset credits were greenwashing writ large. Yes, we were going to get a few more wetlands but it failed to address the root of the issue that farming and poor sewage treatment will continue to produce ever more nitrates and phosphates. Both need to be reformed.   Agricultural practices that produce such pollutants need to be legislated out of existence with more stick than carrot. If we want to build more houses, is it not time that we forced developers to harvest rain and build their own sewage plants rather than add more capacity to the already underinvested and aging water industry infrastructure?

 

 

That was the month we call August  My mother always used to complain that I obsessed about rain. Too much. Too little. Wrong time. Wrong place. I am not sure I was entirely that negative for I am not so dumb as to not recognise when you’ve been dealt of good hand. This year has, to take the poker analogy a bit further, turned up a straight flush for the biggest pot of your life.   I’ve certainly never lived through a summer with such full streams. I know it has been hard on outside events and my farming friends tell me they will be setting new records with both the earliest start to harvest and possibly the latest finish. I even chanced upon a hay cutting last week; the estate manager and I wondered how this June event had become a late summer thing. It wasn’t going to be very good hay ……   The rainfall stats say it all with the south experiencing precisely double the normal rainfall through July and running at 20% ahead for the past year. Of itself an extra fifth might not sound a lot but it is in weather speak. Think back to last year and all the hardships caused by a drop of just 10% below the average.       Congratulations to August feedback draw winner John Pickett who fished Middleton Estate on the River Test in collecting Nigel Nunn’s September collection. Next month the October winner will receive a Mayfly selection to squirrel away in anticipation of 2024 and after that we will have the Annual Draw with everyone in with a chance of Nigel’s amazing special collection that he has put together for me. It will probably be too good to ever really use for something merely as important as fishing.     Top: September prize selection. Below: Nigel conducting essential research.

 

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)     Which Irish band released their first record on this day in 1979?   2)     Who was born Graeme Andrew Logan in 1967?   3)     When was the National Trust founded? a)1895 b)1925 c)1955 d) 1985     We were all young back in 1979, .......

 

Have a good weekend.    Best wishes,

 

 

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

 

 

 

Quiz answers:   1)     U2 2)     The Right Honourable Michael Gove MP 3)     1895