Bloody French! (S C A L L O P S)

[fisherman]

Re: Bloody French!

In re the OP, scallopers are one of the most destructive of fishermen, they flattened a piece of rough ground 5nm off the Lizard, they routinely tow up pots and nets, and where they dredge it turns the ground from whatever it was into scallop ground. It is big money, driven as always by consumer demand, worth about £120m, or about 15% of UK fishing output. Legislation is national and attempts to regulate have been opposed by the powerful scottish sector. It should probably be banned.

 

[fisherman]

Re: Bloody French!

I have been searching for this piece: I know, I know, commissioned by UKIP, but it is a fair assessment of the CFP and worth a read:

http://www.efddgroup.eu/images/publications/Stolen_Seas.pdf

Useful explanation in there about quota-hopping as well

(My laptop refused to open it)

 

[JumbleDuck]

Re: Bloody French!

I wasn't going to quote the holiday cottage argument, but here goes: If i sell my house i do so on the open market, and sell for the market rate, since, should I perversely want another house to live in I will have to pay the market rate. The fact that this price is driven by holiday cottage demand is beyond my control. I could sell to a local at half price, and he would promise to not sell it on at full price straight away, putting him in the full price house market and me out of it. Quotas and licences are the same.

You already have a house to live in, and from the fact that villages with lots of holiday houses do not, by definition, have lots of locals any more, we can deduce that the locals only sold their houses o holiday home owners in order to make a quick buck and live elsewhere. Which is absolutely fine, free world and all that, but leaves the local community no leg to stand on when their villages become theme parks.

And the same goes for fishing quota. Sell it to foreigners if you want, but don't then complain about foreigners having all the quota.

 

[fisherman]

...and...more drift:

A farming outfit which as i understand made, or continues to make, a fortune storing the ash from the burning of foot and mouth animals has invested heavily in fishing in Newlyn.
( https://www.greendale.com/about-us/fleetmap/joy-of-ladram/ )
They are rumoured to have bought up almost all the hake quota and will soon be able to control prices. Our government as ever panders to big business and can't be bothered with smaller one man eco friendly operations, hence the wild skew of quota distribution. Quotas and licences should never have been a tradeable commodity (I just sold a boat for £60k, half that was the licence. The same boat in Eire would need a licence costing 108, 000 euros). What we needed was management of the fishery over the last forty years, and I have somewhere a copy of a letter from my crew asking for just that in 1977.
(sigh) I could go on.....

 

[Mark-1]

Re: Bloody French!

I wasn't going to quote the holiday cottage argument, but here goes: If i sell my house i do so on the open market, and sell for the market rate, since, should I perversely want another house to live in I will have to pay the market rate. The fact that this price is driven by holiday cottage demand is beyond my control. I could sell to a local at half price, and he would promise to not sell it on at full price straight away, putting him in the full price house market and me out of it. Quotas and licences are the same.

Interesting perspective. When you put it like that if a foreign company has a big boats that are so efficient they can pay more for a fisherman's quota than he can make fishing it himself what's he supposed to do? Do all that graft for effectively less money? Selling quota to Iceland is just an export, in the same way that selling fish would be. In fact selling quota *is* exporting fish, it's just that the buyer has to go and collect the fish for himself.

Every day's a school day.

 

[fisherman]

Re: Bloody French!

You already have a house to live in, and from the fact that villages with lots of holiday houses do not, by definition, have lots of locals any more, we can deduce that the locals only sold their houses o holiday home owners in order to make a quick buck and live elsewhere. Which is absolutely fine, free world and all that, but leaves the local community no leg to stand on when their villages become theme parks.

And the same goes for fishing quota. Sell it to foreigners if you want, but don't then complain about foreigners having all the quota.

Everyone knows what to do with a sore arse except the bloke that's got it. Please tell me, what should I do if I want or need to move house? Stay put? Only sell to a local (see above). The disparity between earnings and equity available to local folk and those from the fecund middens of Balham ensures that locals are outbid, and what was a mud hut with a grass roof in Cadgwith, £120 in 1947, £800 with a closure order in 1970 is now a twee holiday home worth a half million. The only answer would be to operate a cartel only buying and selling among ourselves.

We can't control where quotas end up, if your business was on its last legs and you had to sell up your capital base and try to clear your debts, you would maximise your returns. This is the situation for many small UK fishermen, who can't even afford to buy the opportunity to try to catch the fish. There are only 12000 commercial fishermen in the whole of the UK, 5000 in England, wonder why.

 

[Balbas]

Re: Bloody French!

Reference the cottages post above, its quite possible to include a covenant with a sale. Its just that doing so would lower the value of the property, and so no one wants to do it.

 

[fisherman]

Re: Bloody French!

Reference the cottages post above, its quite possible to include a covenant with a sale. Its just that doing so would lower the value of the property, and so no one wants to do it.

...and so my argument stands: how will I afford somewhere to live having sold below par, unless I am downsizing and can afford the loss? There are other considerations, depressed incomes means less pension, this house may be the financial base for retirement. Few among us can afford to give a house away. I do know of one or two, locally, who have taken a knock to sell to a local and well done them, one was left a spare house and is old enough not to need all the equity. The recipient now has two houses, letting one.......
I don't think houses should ever have become an investment vehicle.....same as quotas and licences, it is rumoured there are hedge funds in California holding UK quota.

 

[chrishscorp]

...and...more drift:

A farming outfit which as i understand made, or continues to make, a fortune storing the ash from the burning of foot and mouth animals has invested heavily in fishing in Newlyn.
( https://www.greendale.com/about-us/fleetmap/joy-of-ladram/ )
They are rumoured to have bought up almost all the hake quota and will soon be able to control prices. Our government as ever panders to big business and can't be bothered with smaller one man eco friendly operations, hence the wild skew of quota distribution. Quotas and licences should never have been a tradeable commodity (I just sold a boat for £60k, half that was the licence. The same boat in Eire would need a licence costing 108, 000 euros). What we needed was management of the fishery over the last forty years, and I have somewhere a copy of a letter from my crew asking for just that in 1977.
(sigh) I could go on.....

I was brought up in a fishing port town and they did discuss banning fishing in the local bay and dumping huge quantities of tyres chained together to form an artificial barrier/ fish home / breeding area. It was argued over and over and nothing came of it, the fishing boats, the jobs, and the suppporting jobs, well they are long gone.

As you say the industry has been mismanaged for decades.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Re: Bloody French!

Please tell me, what should I do if I want or need to move house? ... The only answer would be to operate a cartel only buying and selling among ourselves.

That would indeed be the only answer. if it's not the one people choose, they can't then complain about incomers making houses unaffordable. This isn't personal, and not just Cornish, of course.

Ten years ago my parents sold their house in Glasgow. My father was a man of strong principles, one of which was not to profit by house price inflation. They sold the house, to someone who needed it and could not afford much, for what they paid in 1961 + RPI shifts, which came to about 40% of market value. Lost me a packet in inheritance, but I admired and admire them for it.

We can't control where quotas end up, if your business was on its last legs and you had to sell up your capital base and try to clear your debts, you would maximise your returns.

Of course. But I can't see why people who failed to make a living through fishing should care so much about the nationality of those who do it better.

 

[Sybarite]

...and...more drift:

A farming outfit which as i understand made, or continues to make, a fortune storing the ash from the burning of foot and mouth animals has invested heavily in fishing in Newlyn.
( https://www.greendale.com/about-us/fleetmap/joy-of-ladram/ )
They are rumoured to have bought up almost all the hake quota and will soon be able to control prices. Our government as ever panders to big business and can't be bothered with smaller one man eco friendly operations, hence the wild skew of quota distribution. Quotas and licences should never have been a tradeable commodity (I just sold a boat for £60k, half that was the licence. The same boat in Eire would need a licence costing 108, 000 euros). What we needed was management of the fishery over the last forty years, and I have somewhere a copy of a letter from my crew asking for just that in 1977.
(sigh) I could go on.....

Well you had Nigel Farage on the EU fisheries commission defending your interests..... oh no; he didn't attend any meetings did he?

 

[st599]

Re: Bloody French!

We can't control where quotas end up, if your business was on its last legs and you had to sell up your capital base and try to clear your debts, you would maximise your returns. This is the situation for many small UK fishermen, who can't even afford to buy the opportunity to try to catch the fish. There are only 12000 commercial fishermen in the whole of the UK, 5000 in England, wonder why.

And therein lies the problem - the quota has been legally acquired by foreign vessels. Do you honestly think that after Brexit, the UK government are going to piss off these foreign vessels (and their governments with whom they're desperate to make a trade deal) over 12000 jobs?

The quota's gone, the foreign vessels have invested and diversified, the increase in tariffs and non-tariff barriers will kill off the rest of the UK industry.

 

[harry potter]

And supposing our brave fisherman tried the same tactics against the Frenchies coming over and hoovering up all our benthic resources, what would you say ? Have you seen the state of the seabed after a beam trawler has passed over it a dozen times ? Has the word 'sustainability' entered your consciousness ?

Even in an ironic post, you have lost the overview of how everyone should be protecting and nurturing a very precious natural resource. Good on the French for trying to gain the shellfish another few weeks to mature, and protect a local industry.

Would that Brexit enables us to look after our own fishing zones properly for the future

Totally agree!

 

[3571]

Re: Bloody French!

And therein lies the problem - the quota has been legally acquired by foreign vessels. Do you honestly think that after Brexit, the UK government are going to piss off these foreign vessels (and their governments with whom they're desperate to make a trade deal) over 12000 jobs?

The quota's gone, the foreign vessels have invested and diversified, the increase in tariffs and non-tariff barriers will kill off the rest of the UK industry.

Those within are seeing it very differently -

https://fishingnews.co.uk/news/300m...-boats-scheduled-to-join-uk-fleet-by-2021-22/

 

[Sgeir]

Re: Bloody French!

I have sympathy for fishermen who obey the rules, meet their quota obligations, and pay their taxes.

However, if the Scottish legal cases of five or six years ago are anything to go by, the industry is riven by large scale corruption and criminality.

 

[Bodach na mara]

Re: Scallop War...

No sign of Bob Geldof or Nigel Farage on the British boats - yet.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45337091
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...nglish-channel-rights-bay-seine-a8512291.html

I have read the whole thread hoping someone would tell us what that rope leading ahead of the Honeybourne 3 is. It shows up in the video as well and is clearly under tension the whole time which is strange given that the boat seems to be doing about 10 knots at the time.

On a separate track, Honeybourne 3 (the blue boat in the picture) is registered in Peterhead (PD 905). Thus it is "British" but may actually be owned and skippered by Europeans.

 

[3571]

Re: Bloody French!

I have sympathy for fishermen who obey the rules, meet their quota obligations, and pay their taxes.

However, if the Scottish legal cases of five or six years ago are anything to go by, the industry is riven by large scale corruption and criminality.

It's a funny one this, I remember not too many years back someone made similar insinuations on an angling forum, someone researched it and in the last set of data available at the time it turned out that despite tight enforcement from sea to plate the notoriously trigger happy MMO had surprisingly only prosecuted fishing offences the grand total of 12 times that particular year.

If it's the big Pelagic cases of 2012 which were for offences from the very early 2000s that you mean, they were actually caught because they did pay the appropriate taxes on the illegal earnings which led to the further investigations.

 

[3571]

Re: Scallop War...

I have read the whole thread hoping someone would tell us what that rope leading ahead of the Honeybourne 3 is. It shows up in the video as well and is clearly under tension the whole time which is strange given that the boat seems to be doing about 10 knots at the time.

On a separate track, Honeybourne 3 (the blue boat in the picture) is registered in Peterhead (PD 905). Thus it is "British" but may actually be owned and skippered by Europeans.

It's actually a deck hose sticking out of the bow rather than a rope, trying to keep the french off aparently. I was a bit puzzled by it as well but other footage shows it clearly as a hose spraying water.

She is owned by a Scottish shellfish processing company who are subsequently owned by a Canadian Seafood company, I have no idea which nationality the skipper is.

 

[steve yates]

It's a bit simplistic to blame the locals for selling houses as holiday cottages. Quite often those houses may come on the market because of deceased parents, children already have moved elsewhere for careers etc, so the house is sold for what they can get. Perfectly understandable.
It's the councils or the government who should take the lead in preventing such rampant inflation, and a good start would be by a property tax on second homes, or trebling council tax on second homes.
If someone can afford a quarter of a million pounds for a wee cottage in a village as a holiday home, they could afford it at half the price plus the hefty taxes for the privilege. They still have the opportunity and the locals can buy houses on a level playing field.

 

[JumbleDuck]

It's a bit simplistic to blame the locals for selling houses as holiday cottages. Quite often those houses may come on the market because of deceased parents, children already have moved elsewhere for careers etc, so the house is sold for what they can get. Perfectly understandable.

Absolutely. But they can't then complain that locals can't live in the places where they grew up.