Northern Federation Of Sea Angling Societies – Email To Anthony Hynes Regarding Marine Conservation Zones

Alan Charlton
Press Sec NFSAS

Anthony Hynes
DEFRA

Re MCZ meeting 3rd April

This is the first time I have been able to contact you having just returned from short break away during which I attended the meeting on 3rd April which entailed a round trip of 280 mile. You did e mail me earlier asking if there was anything you could do I should let you know, I replied that I was expecting Jamie Davies to answer the points I had raised with the local NE, which where ignored and would give him the chance to. I now find the need to approach you direct. If this gets the NFSAS nowhere then I would imagine the next step will be our MEP, think he might be interested in why the process is stalling. Unfortunately I found the meeting at Birmingham a total waste of my time, as you know from the meeting the JNCC and NE refused to answer any of the points that I raised sent to them weeks beforehand, suspect they had got their heads together beforehand to decide what to do. The JNCC and NE where more interested into trying to persuade the angling bodies represented there that the MCZ designation was the greatest thing since sliced bread for anglers and we should go away and extol the virtues of the MCZ’s to our members. Yes I did say I could pass the information on to all my contacts, but not until questions are answered, and also that they themselves should come and tell the anglers, it is not our job to do their work. To those who have only just started attending meetings with NE and the like, along with the, this is a wonderful partnership to be involved in, and we want to be open and build bridges after what has happened in the past sounds very good. However, to someone like myself and the other angling bodies present, who have attended many meetings in the past with NE it is just the same old rhetoric we have heard over and over again. I had come with the intention to have a real go at NE about the contradicting answers I had received from Audrey Jones, her condition prevented me from doing so, as I did not want a happy event to come sooner than expected. And as for their veiled threats, the first in my conversation with Audrey when she said if we did not co operate we might end up with nothing, and Jamie’s threat that if we did not give the information about bait digging we could find the bait beds included in an MCZ. So what, if the JNCC and NE want to go down that route then you should look at the North East anglers track record, we have already forced one public enquiry and a North East angler went all the way to the Crown Court to prove the “right of fisheries”. And they call this a partnership, if anglers have nothing to worry about, why will the JNCC and NE not answer the questions they are asked, truthfully that is. At the NFSAS AGM on the 16th, I will be proposing that we go off a statement made by Audrey Jones, when I asked will there be any bait digging or fishing bans within MCZ’s she gave an emphatic NO, long before Audrey started contradicting herself, I will put that confusion down to her condition.

I also when I arrived home expected to have the minutes of the meeting, this should have been done straight away as they where typed straight onto a lap top and could have been e mailed out, or are the JNCC and NE going through them to see if there is any leading statements they have made that should not be in, like the one I asked Tom Bleasedale if he would put it into writing, which he said NO to. If that has been removed from the minutes then the NFSAS will know they have been altered and not a true record of the meeting. And also Audrey Jones also said she would send the results of the CEFAS survey which took place along the East and North East coast, still waiting.

In the future if the JNCC, NE, and DEFRA want to talk to the NFSAS, you will have to come to us, I certainly do not want another wasted journey to Birmingham.

yours A.J.Charlton