13 August 2008
The Federation is heavily engaged in discussions with various bodies over offshore developments that could have direct consequences for the fleet, including loss of access to fishing grounds.
Marine Conservation Zones
Fisheries Minister, Jonathan Shaw, was put under intense pressure at the NFFO’s annual general meeting about the complete absence of dialogue on the issue of marine conservation zones, despite their imminent arrival in 2012. The Government’s Marine Bill makes provision for a network of zones in which activities, including fishing, could be restricted or even prohibited. The Government’s statutory advisors on nature conservation, Natural England and the Joint Nature Conservancy Council, are preparing the ground for the conservation zones but no attempt had been made to discuss the issue with the industry’s representative body.
Raising the issue directly with the Minister at the AGM seems to have had some effect. Natural England has been in touch and will present their intentions to a meeting of NFFO representatives in York on 26th September.
Wind-farms
The Federation met the Crown Estate recently to discuss the fishing industry’s disquiet with the process for establishing offshore wind-farms. As the Crown Estate has embarked on the process for designating areas for Phase 3 of the programme of offshore wind-farms the timing of the meeting was critical. Phase 1 wind-farms were expected to generate 1.6 giga-watts of power, Phase 2, 7.2 gigawatts and Phase 3 is anticipated to generate in the region of 25 gigawatts. It will therefore be on a different scale of magnitude to its predecessors and its impact on fishing likely to be equally as large.
The Crown Estate was told that Phases 1 and 2 had failed to put in place the arrangements that would allow a reasonable dialogue on where the wind-farm zones should be sited to minimise the impact on fishing. Equally, although the NFFO had pressed successfully for a liaison group to allow the two sectors to talk to each other the FlOWW Group had failed to live up to expectations.
Accepting the need to do things differently for phase 3, the Crown Estate undertook to:
- Examine an NFFO proposal for a major fishing activity mapping exercise to identify critical fishing areas. The work would require significant external funding and over-sight by a panel including NFFO representatives.
- Put in place arrangements for a meaningful dialogue between the fishing industry and the Crown Estate/ Wind-farm developers on the site of any future wind-farms.
The Federation is still fighting to move the Westermost Rough wind-farm which has been sited on the most productive lobster grounds in the UK. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly the weakness of the consultation arrangements. However, the Crown Estate indicated that it could be flexible on its rules and so there remains scope to get the location moved.
Aggregate Dredging
At a recent meeting in London the Federation queried why a project designed to draw up regional seabed information maps failed to have a fishing representative on its steering committee. Regional characterisation plans could be very influential in the future in shaping marine conservation zones as well as licensed dredging areas and it is quite wrong that the information is collected under asymmetrical arrangements. With marine spatial planning just around the corner knowledge of marine activities, including fishing will, to a large degree shape the content of the plans. Defra has undertaken to review the arrangements in light of the Federation’s comments.