IN DIRE STRAIT
MENAI STRAIT MUSSEL FISHING IN ‘LAST-CHANCE SALOON’, SAY PRODUCERS ... AND IT MAY ONLY HAVE UNTIL CHRISTMAS
MUSSEL fishing on the Menai Strait is in danger of being wiped out over technical holdups with new management measures, say angry producers.
They say they’re in the “last-chance saloon” and have until Christmas to save an industry they have nurtured for 58 years.
To continue, they need new Fishery Order before one expires – and time is out.
Plaid Cymru is pushing for answers, with Anglesey MS Rhun ap Iorwerth calling on the Welsh Government to act with “real urgency”.
He is alarmed that the delay is jeopardising a sector that has carved out a successful export market on the Continent, and is putting up to 30 jobs at risk.
“If Welsh Government isn’t able to prioritise and deliver on this important matter, it brings into question its commitment to developing this sector as a whole,” said Mr ap Iorwerth.
Two years ago, the Menai Strait Fishery Order Management Association (MSFOMA) applied for a new Fishery Order – to cover the eastern Menai Strait – before the current one runs out on March 31, 2022.
Although the deadline is not for another 28 months, MSFOMA is mindful of the delays that have beset a similar bid for to secure a the existing fast running the western Menai Strait: it applied for an order more than a decade ago and is still waiting.
“The western area has huge potential but can’t yet be managed,” said Jim Andrews, of MSFOMA.
“The eastern area is currently productive yet we need a new Fishery Order.
“If we can’t start the process by Christmas, the chances of saving the sector becomes vanishingly small.”
For generations, the Menai Strait has been the UK’s leading area for shellfish farming.
One operator, Bangor Mussel Producers, harvests around 8-10,000 tonnes of live mussels a year, of which around 98% are exported, mostly to EU countries.
A hard Brexit, with tariffs, will pose huge challenges for the sector – but MSFOMA said missing out on a new Fishery Order was an existential threat.
Alan Winstone, the group’s chair, expressed frustration with the lack of progress despite cordial relationships with Welsh Government officials.
“If the minister fails to take decisive action on this matter right now, there is a real risk Wales will lose this area and all of the jobs that depend on it,” he said.
Cardiff acknowledged the contribution of the current Menai fishery order towards the success of the wider aquaculture sector in Wales.
Despite difficulties presented by Brexit and Covid-19, officials are still progressing MSFOMA’s application, said a Welsh
Government spokesman.
“We are working closely with them on several points of detail,” he added.
However James Wilson, a mussel business owner from Anglesey, said action was needed immediately as livelihoods depended upon it.
He said the Fishery Order had been submitted early in the expectation that it might become mired in bureaucracy.
“Being proved right sometimes isn’t a great feeling,” he said.
“These businesses have been built up over decades, and all the lads that have invested their working lives into them.
“That they can be placed in jeopardy simply because Government doesn’t seem to be able to apply a long established legal process that helps deliver on its own policy objectives, says something pretty fundamental and bleak about the Wales that we live in today.”