'Bright sparks in London' blasted over proposals to ban fishing on Holy Island

Earlier this year the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) announced a consultation on creating a highly protected marine area (HPMA) around the island, putting an end to thousands of years of fishing at Lindisfarne.

At Wednesday’s meeting of the county council, Coun Colin Hardy, who represents Norham and Islandshires, urged his fellow councillors to vote to oppose the plans in the strongest possible terms.

In a barnstorming speech, Coun Hardy said: “I was elected to represent the people of Holy Island. If this motion fails, and Defra imposes a fishing ban we will lose six fishing boats – that’s the equivalent of six farms on the mainland.

“It will devastate the island’s economy. It will make it unaffordable. If we lose the fisherman, we lose the school, we lose the heart of the island.

“We become a museum, like Beamish – the last person across the causeway, switch the lights off.

“Defra didn’t even realise that Holy Island was a tidal causeway. They said boats were tied up on the salt marshes – I asked them to try and walk to them, they turned me down.

“They said fisherman on the shore were impacting fish populations – I offered them to opportunity to walk from Berwick to Beadnell to count the number of fisherman on the coast. They declined, but there is none.

“The fisherman of Holy Island don’t trawl. They don’t dredge the seas. They feed a local industry, they feed a local community and they feed our county.

“Let us support what we have got, not what somebody else wants because they thought we were an easy target.”

Much of the chamber was supportive, with other councillors representing coastal communities fearful of the knock-on impact it would have on their fishing industries due to Holy Island fisherman travelling elsewhere. Coun Hardy warned the move would impact on the coast “from Berwick to Blyth.”

Coun Colin Horncastle added: “What’s probably happened is we have some bright spark in London who woke up one morning and wanted to make an impact. We will save Holy Island and ban fishing there.

“Maybe they’ve never been up here. It does appear here that they don’t know what the heck they’re doing.”

Despite the large support for Coun Hardy’s motion, it was not supported by the council’s two Green councillors. Coun Martin Swinbank, who represents Alnwick, felt the council could not dismiss the proposal without more evidence.

He said: “This consultation is for a pilot to better understand how biodiversity can recover. We should not dismiss it out of hand, we simply must have a dialogue with Defra.”

Responding to calls for more evidence, Coun David Towns retorted: “Asking for evidence that this is going to devastate the fishing communities of Holy Island is a bit like asking for evidence that if I punch you in the face, is it going to hurt?”

Interim chief executive Rick O’Farrell added that Defra’s own documents acknowledged a loss to the economy of between £600,000 and £9m.

The Defra consultation ends on September 28.