£5 million
How it will help kids fish
THE Angling Trust has this week revealed plans to help protect fishing and improve angling participation in England – thanks to a new £4.6m contract with the Environment Agency.
As Angling Times revealed last week, the EA has awarded angling’s representative body a new four-year deal worth £1.15m annually.
And in a further boost to the sport, £670,000 has also been secured from Sport England to help promote participation in angling and competitive fishing over the next two years.
In response to this news, the Angling Trust has now released a statement highlighting how it will spend the funds within key areas between now and 2023 – with around £800,000 focused on getting more people involved in the sport over the next two years.
Clive Copeland, Head of Participation for the Angling Trust, said: “Our approach will be to maintain the successful delivery of social angling events for families, junior anglers and lapsed adult anglers of all ages and abilities to build momentum of the ‘Get Fishing Campaign’ and the Angling Trust ‘Let’s Go Family Fishing’ programme.
“We will integrate our Sport England delivery to maintain a frequent angling habit in adults and deliver angling programmes to support people suffering from mental health issues and those living in areas of socio-economic deprivation, in line with the Government’s 25-year Plan for the Environment.
“Working with the Canal and River Trust, Get Hooked on Fishing and the Angling Trade Association, in the last two years alone we have run over 1,800 events across the country, introducing 47,000 adults and 30,000 juniors to the sport.”
To gain a better grasp of how new people get into angling, the Environment Agency and the Angling Trust listened to the public through the 2012 National Angling Survey and the 2016 Angling Insight report conducted by research company, Substance.
These survey results revealed that 38 per cent of those who participated were introduced to angling by a parent, whereas 19 per cent came into the sport via another family member.
Of those surveyed, 61 per cent indicated that they started fishing before they the age of 10 and 56 per cent said that events where they could fish with family or friends would encourage them to go fishing more often.
Now Substance is collating results from 2018’s National Angling Survey to provide an up-to-date assessment of factors that stop people going fishing, and help direct the Trust towards improved communication with the public.
“To build on our engagement and event delivery and increase the number of licensed anglers, we intend to increase our communications at both a local and national level,” added Will Smith, the Trust’s Angling Promotions Manager. “We’ll follow-up
communications with participants and develop new strategies to market angling to specific demographics in the non-angling public.
“This work will be led by a new part-time Communications and Marketing Officer who will work with the new Angling Trust Head of Marketing, myself and the Environment Agency.
“We shall develop and implement a new marketing strategy to deliver the key objectives and recruitment targets in line with the new contract.”