The Conservation & Access Group under the chairmanship of Richard Ferre has made real progress over the past three years and as a result the UK Government has listened and continues to listen to our submissions on behalf of recreational sea anglers and this success is down to the work of the Group along with its partners the BASS Anglers Sportfishing Society and the web based Sea Angling Conservation Network.

It would be pertinent to list these successes and areas of work.

The Government Commissioned the Drew Report which came about after extensive lobbying started five years ago by the NFSA and this report has confirmed that there are nationally one million sea anglers in England and Wales who have a potential spend of £ one billion. Those figures confirm what many had already recognised that we are a huge industry and as such worthy of support and a place at the table when fishery management issues are being discussed.

We have lobbied and obtained better representation on the Sea Fisheries Committees who have the responsibility to manage our inshore fisheries up to 6 miles. They do this through national legislation and local byelaws, but some have been justifiably criticised for historically managing the fisheries on behalf of just one stakeholder, the commercial fisherman. Therefore the increased representation of 22 sea angling representatives nationwide, along with the government recognition of the value of the recreational sector will help ensure that the SFC in the future will also consider making byelaws to protect the fish stocks that are important to the sea angler.

The first efforts by Tom Pinborough in the Eastern Joint SFC to have the Stour and Orwell Estuary classified as a Recreational Fishery has met with some considerable opposition, but we are not deterred and in the North Eastern SFC there is better news where Nigel Proctor has led the imitative to create a byelaw, now currently under consideration, which we are confident will outlaw the commercial fishing and slaughter of tope.

The Government has through the work of its Strategy Unit issued a report that acknowledges our interests in the management of fisheries and the Government is to prepare new legislation in the form of a new Marine Bill committed to ensuring that all stakeholder interests in fishery management are considered in a joined up approach. We are to lead the RSA Working Group and have already identified a number of committed people to ensure that our best interests are upheld.

Members of the Group have had had an input into the BASS Management Plan which we fully support and the Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw has also publically supported. DEFRA has already begun work on preparing the consultation and legislation; we expect details of the consultation period very soon, following which the BMP will be discussed widely with its proposed increased landing size to 45cm being the first step towards a comprehensive management plan for the bass.

One of our gripes had always been that we do not receive sufficient Government interest in recreational fisheries, therefore we are happy to report that there is now a civil service team in place with a remit to review and represent recreational sea angling, even better this team is headed up by an angler.

In addition we are constantly being made aware of the various access issues around the UK, where access to fish a being denied either from a local management or by liability insurance issues. Although we have carried out considerable work over the years we see this as an increasing threat on our sport, therefore we aim to increase our activity in this area, but to do so we need help and financial resources.

Over the past three years we have achieved all this and more, now we have to deliver and the only way we can deliver is to make sure that sufficient infrastructure is in place to enable us to represent the recreational sea angler at every possible opportunity. This may be locally at club and division level, nationally and in Europe where our interests are represented by our membership of the European Anglers Alliance where we have a representative on the Sea Sub Group in Tony Williams. The EAA is an organisation of over 18 nations representing 25 million anglers that constantly lobby at the EU in Brussels. The subscriptions to EAA alone this year is £3500 to support that lobbyist plus all travel, preparation of reports and meeting costs.

The vast majority of this work is done by volunteers who work hundreds of hours and travel thousands of miles with little and certainly no re-imbursement, therefore it must be very clear why it is vital that we recruit more members and generate extra revenue to support our work.