Well, after a week’s fishing in Holland in early June the river season has started here at home and judging the Broads results from both Andy’s and Tony’s matches the Broads again is delivering the goods for both the competitive and pleasure angler.
Right is Simon Smith at Cold Harbour in the Broads Pairs Festival 2nd July 2023
The national focus on our Water continues at pace.
Who would have thought 12 months back the final exposure some of our water companies have brought upon themselves? One wonders where this is all going to end.
I have been in continued discussions with Anglian Water on their investment plans for the next 5 years 2025-2030 and hope to have an open and frank dialogue on these matters in the coming weeks. It will be interesting if any of the planned £10b investment the government agreed with the industry and announced back in May will be within these plans.
Broads Environment Management
Our stakeholder meeting to engage all Broads stakeholders took place on the 23rd June, this was a direct result of us challenging the Environment Agency on their ability to manage the Broads Environment. To publicly now hear the area director state, they can’t resource either proactively or re-actively and respond to incidents following a decade of imposed government budget constraints has limited their resources and capability should be a wake up call to us all.
The meeting looked at what gaps are now left exposed and how could the 3rd sector help cover some of the gaps. There will be a full report issued on this in the coming weeks.
Focus on Salinity and the Freshwater Ecology
It’s great that the Broads Society with Duncan have taking on the arrangement of the conference at the UEA in November looking at salinity impacting on the Broads Freshwater Ecology and what’s needed to be done to adapt and sustain this in the medium term. Its management committee are currently arranging quest speakers and sponsors.
Wensum
There is just so much activity and enthusiasm being exposed through the Wensum Partnership, it’s a challenge keeping abreast of everything.
The Fishery Recovery Plan has now evolved into a 13 point action plan, with some world leading science.
We have identified 3 point sources of pollution, through our dedicated bunch of citizen scientists, the tricky bit is now working with the landowners to resolve these issues. Again as pointed out above, the Environment Agency the regulator isn’t able to resolve this, as it just doesn’t have the resources to investigate and pursue.
Regards
Kelvin
Chair BASG
