Below is the letter sent to various official by the Severn Fisheries group objecting to the new Severn Byelaws/   A well argued response I am sure you will agree. Problem is however the people its being sent to will know nothing of the problems involved and will rely for a response on their so called  'experts' in the EA  I wish them luck;

To Rt Hon Victoria Prentis MP and Rebecca Pow, Under Secretaries of State, Defra

from the Severn Fisheries Group 

Dear Ministers,

 Unfortunately, you have been misled and deceived by the EA, with your own civil servants complicit in covering up the inadequacies and long-term errors in the environment agency's annual salmon stock assessments on the Severn and many other rivers without fish counters. 

 

Furthermore, the EA omitted the inconvenient truth in its superficial technical case when launching the byelaw consultation in March this year that it was already in possession of a provisional estimate of a 38% recovery in 2020 catches of returning salmon numbers compared with 2019. The EA have wilfully supressed and delayed the publication of the annual report of salmon stocks and fisheries for 2020 because this recent available evidence undermines the case, they have built on 2 exceptionally poor salmon catch years of 2018 and 2019, the result of winter storms in 2015\16 reducing juvenile salmon numbers, and low summer rainfall in 2018 constraining rod catches. 

 

As responsible ministers for the byelaw, you have therefore agreed to the imposition of a disproportionate and unenforceable 10-year byelaw. In the absence of access to the most recent data about the state of salmon sustainability on the Severn, relying on selective and flawed data and analysis provided by the EA terminating in 2019. 

 

Throughout the consultation process the Severn Fisheries Group had been requesting dialogue with the EA so it could mutually work together with the EA in seeking a voluntary solution to increase the proportion of rod caught salmon returned to the river. As a representative group of anglers and angling clubs that care passionately about the River Severn and its migratory fish stocks the EA have from the outset aimed at an uncompromising command and control approach which will further reduce the dwindling number of dedicated salmon anglers on the River Severn. 

 

We hope that you are totally comfortable with your decision to approve the conditions of the 10-year byelaw that is both unenforceable and will do little or nothing to increase the sustainability of salmon in the River Severn now knowing that the evidence submitted to you by the EA has been flawed and misleading. The Severn Fisheries Group have the evidence to substantiate its case.

 

Yours sincerely,

Glyn Marshall Coordinator Severn Fisheries Group, Chairman Worcester Angling Society.