Interesting article i've just came across,just shows roughly how much sea anglers already contribute to the economy ;
Traditionally, sea anglers have (rightly so) benefitted from free fishing along Britain?s coastline - we?re free to fish, catch and eat (as long as the fish meet the minimum regulation size) from any public shore. Unfortunately this won?t be the case if the Marine Bill White Paper has anything to do with it. The White Paper has proposed the possiblity of introducing rod licences for sea anglers, meaning that anybody who wants to fish from the shore will have to purchase one of these licences before doing so. Estimates are sketchy as to the amount of sea anglers there are out there, some reports state 20,000 whilst others a whopping 1,000,000. Even if you go somewhere in the middle, the amount of Government revenue that would be raised by a licence would be quite significant.
Those acquainted with coarse fishing will already be accustomed to the necessary evil of purchasing rod licences from the Environment Agency. At least coarse fishing licences can be justified - the EA do a great job at preserving the UK?s riverways, banks, canals and even looking after fish stocks. Just how a the license of sea anglers would benefit fish stocks and the maintenance of Britain?s shores remains to be seen. What detrimental effect do sea anglers really pose to the coastline? As a guess, when compared to the commercial overfishing which has been prevelant in the North Sea for example, UK sea anglers probably represent less than 0.0001% of any decline in fish stocks. This is just a simplified number, but I believe that the Government should tackle these commercial fishing issues before introducing yet another regressive tax.
It has been commented that UK sea anglers contribute up to half a billion pounds to the economy per annum - you know where it goes, tackle, bait etc? Surely this contribution is enough to the economy than an unnecessary sea fishing licence.
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