The Environment Agency has released 1,500 fish into a recently re-established fishery this week to give stocks a pre-Christmas boost and encourage angling.

Lockwood Beck reservoir, south of Guisborough, opened earlier this year to coarse anglers and they’ve since been catching fish such as roach and perch.

Now the Environment Agency has stocked bream, tench and crucian carp to provide more variety for anglers and encourage participation at the fishery.

The fish have all been bred at the Environment Agency’s fish farm near Calverton, which is solely funded by rod licence money.

Young anglers help stocking

To mark the fish stocking on Tuesday a group of young anglers from Eastern Ravens Trust in Stockton-on-Tees received expert angling tuition from the Angling Trust and had the opportunity to see the new fish being released into the reservoir.

Eastern Ravens Trust is a registered charity based in the Community Zone, North Shore Academy, which provides open access youth activities to young people aged 10-18 in the most deprived ward in the borough alongside supporting isolated and disadvantaged children, young people and families.

The owners of the reservoir, Northumbrian Water Ltd, provided support on the day and are committed to providing the venue in the future for organised coaching events for anglers aged under 16.

Happy with the development

Phil Rippon, Fisheries Technical Specialist from the Environment Agency in the North East, said:

We are happy to help with the development of Lockwood Beck fishery, working with the Angling Trust and Northumbrian Water to encourage more participation in angling.

The reservoir is an excellent venue for future coaching events as well as providing a resource for local anglers. The fish provided by us will help to support the fish stocks and provide a more interesting variety of species.

Great news for fishing

Don Coe, Leisure Operations Manager at Northumbrian Water, added:

This is a fantastic way to get young people interested in fishing and we’re very pleased to be supporting the Angling Trust with their activity.

Also, the stocking carried out by the Environment Agency will also enhance the appeal of Lockwood Beck for anglers of all ages and experience, so this is great news for fishing in the area.

Angling is a great way for everyone to keep healthy and enjoy the natural environment. All rod licence income is used to find work to protect and improve fish stocks and fisheries.

Youngsters help give reservoir a fish stocks boost

Two further suspects remain at large and the Environment Agency is urging anyone with information to report it to their incident hotline.

It is suspected they were poaching on Waskerley Beck, Wolsingham, using an illegal gaff – a one meter long metal hook – which they used to take 13 sea trout. Eleven of the dead fish were females ready to spawn. Between them they were carrying around 35,000 eggs.

Environment Agency officers made the arrest at 2100hrs on 21 November 2017. During the operation they seized the gaff, the dead fish and a landing net. The investigation is ongoing.

The Environment Agency’s Kevin Summerson said:

This level of illegal activity could have a serious impact on the sustainability of future stocks of sea trout in the River Wear. That’s why we take reports of suspected poaching seriously and work closely with the police to take action where appropriate.

At this time of year salmon and sea trout are returning to rivers to spawn and protecting returning fish is vital to maintaining a healthy fish population.

We’ll continue to target all aspects of illegal fishing activity, particularly where serious illegal and potentially damaging methods are used.

Reporting illegal fishing

Anyone discovered committing offences could face a substantial fine in court. The Environment Agency urges anyone to report illegal fishing by calling 0800 80 70 60.

All income from rod licence sales is used to fund Environment Agency work to protect and improve fish stocks and fisheries, including improving habitats for fish and facilities for anglers, tackling illegal fishing and working with partners to encourage people to give fishing a go.

Buying a rod licence is quick and easy – you can buy them online at the Post Office.

It was a busy day for the team who stopped a number of waste carriers to see if they had a permit to carry waste, had the correct duty of care paperwork and were describing the waste they were carrying correctly. Officers also checked whether waste was being transported to authorised and legitimate sites where it would be handled correctly.

Senior Environmental Crime Officer Julia Leigh said:

We had a great response from various waste carriers that were stopped, thanking us for carrying out these road stops as they are frustrated with illegal operators undermining their legitimate businesses. It also gave us an opportunity to remind people of the need to use registered waste carriers and comply with their duty of care.

Multi-agency days of action are a valuable tool in preventing and disrupting waste crime. The Environment Agency want to make it very clear to people that everyone has a duty of care to ensure their waste is managed and disposed of correctly by the people they give it to.

Waste being transported with no authorisations is likely to end up at illegal waste sites. Such sites store waste in vast quantities and for long periods of time posing significant risks to health and the environment, like pest infestations and fires, which could lead to water and land contamination plus air pollution from smoke. Illegal waste sites are often the cause of odour complaints too.

Julia Leigh added:

Everyone, including householders, need to make sure that when they have waste removed that they use a registered waste carrier and ensure there is a waste transfer note for the waste taken. If they don’t they risk being fined £5,000. Illegal operators have been filling up sites and leaving the landowner to pay for the clear-up costs. Depending on what waste has been left the cost of this can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not more.

Our enforcement days make sure that the right waste goes to the right place. People who manage waste illegally cost the taxpayer millions every year in clean-up costs. They undercut legitimate business, pose a direct threat to sustainable growth in the waste management sector and take valuable resource from the public sector.

Contact

• For all media enquiries call: 0800 141 2743.
• Email: southeastpressoffice1@environment-agency.gov.uk.
• Follow us on Twitter: @EnvAgencySE

Marcus Fry and Rob Nichols travelled to London at the weekend to collect their award from SADS UK, a national charity that campaigns to prevent loss of life from Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome.

The pair swung into action after a colleague collapsed at the Environment Agency’s head office in Horizon House, Bristol. The victim, a woman, was unresponsive and struggling to breathe.

First-aider Marcus started administering cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), then realised he could also deploy an automatic external defibrillator to prevent the risk of brain damage until an ambulance arrived. Software contractor Rob Nichols took over CPR while Marcus powered up the defibrillator.

Project manager Marcus, 55, of Thornbury, said:

These things work on a fluttering heart, so while Rob, a volunteer with West Midlands Ambulance Service, continued the CPR, I put the pads on the patient. The machine did an analysis and instructed us to continue mouth-to-mouth and CPR. After 2 to 3 minutes the paramedics arrived, followed by an ambulance carrying larger equipment, and then a doctor by helicopter.

After 20 minutes the medics stabilised the patient before taking her to hospital, where she was slowly awakened and treated for her heart condition.

Richard Houghton, Deputy Director, Health, Safety and Wellbeing at the Environment Agency said:

We are very proud and grateful of our quick-thinking colleagues whose calmness and first aid knowledge saved their workmate’s life. The health, safety and wellbeing of our workforce is paramount for the Environment Agency, and I congratulate Marcus and Rob on winning this award.

Rapid treatment is essential when someone suffers Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) and the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating. If this happens, blood stops flowing to the brain and other vital organs.

A defibrillator sends an electric shock to the heart to restore its normal rhythm. Prompt treatment increases a victim’s chances of survival and reduces the risk of brain damage. Without rapid treatment only around 8% of people survive without neurological damage so every minute counts.

The Environment Agency colleague, after her recovery, said:

I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Marcus and Rob provided the assistance I needed with minimum delay. Their actions were impeccable. I was in hospital for 2 days in an induced coma and thankfully hadn’t suffered any neurological damage when I came around.

In a statement read out at Saturday’s awards ceremony the colleague said, “There are no words in any language that can express the feeling of being resuscitated. They just didn’t give up on me. Gratitude is massive. But yet ‘gratitude’ feels like such a small word.”

Anne Jolly MBE, founder of SADS UK, said:

SADS UK commend the lifesaving action taken by Rob and Marcus. It is good to know there was a defibrillator on the premises and that the Environment Agency has installed more at other offices since this incident.

The introduction of the automatic external defibrillator to the Environment Agency’s Bristol office can be credited to the experience of former Bolton Wanderers’ Fabrice Muamba. When he was aged 23, Fabrice suffered cardiac arrest during a match against Tottenham Hotspurs and was resuscitated after his heart stopped beating for 7 minutes.

Marcus was presented with a Lifepak defibrillator that he is donating to Yatton Keynell Village Hall, Wiltshire.

A Leeds-based house building company has been fined £120,000 for illegally polluting a watercourse from a Huddersfield construction site.

Harron Homes Limited was sentenced yesterday (20 November) at Leeds Magistrates’ Court after admitting one charge of causing illegal discharges from its Farriers Croft estate in 2015.

The Environment Agency prosecuted the firm after investigating reports of contaminated run-off which was entering a tributary of Grimescar Dyke.

Rosalind Emsley-Smith, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, told the court that an officer visited the site on 20 November 2015 and saw polluted water flowing out of the entrance of the construction site. The company was also pumping silt contaminated water from site excavations which also entered the watercourse.

Following the Environment Agency’s visit, Harron Homes attempted to control the silt run-off by setting up settlement tanks. However, further incidents of pollution were reported in November and December 2015 and subsequent inspections revealed that this system was inadequate. Silty water was found to be discharging, resulting in further pollution.

Samples taken from the discharges showed that they were having a significant impact on the water quality in the watercourse up to three kilometres further downstream. Some samples showed there to be nearly 35,000 milligrams of suspended solids per litre of water, whereas a healthy watercourse is expected to have a concentration lower than 30 milligrams per litre.

Mark West, environment management team leader at the Environment Agency, said:

These pollution incidents had a significant impact on the water environment over a number of weeks, and were entirely avoidable. In West Yorkshire there has been a worrying increase in the number of pollutions incidents reported to us that on investigation are attributable to the construction sector.

Construction companies should consider the potential environmental impact of developments they undertake at the initial planning stage and must adhere to environmental permitting rules and invest in appropriate management systems to prevent their activities from affecting the local environment.

If anyone spots pollution of this kind, they are urged to contact the Environment Agency’s incident hotline on 0800 807060 so we can investigate.

In mitigation, Harron Homes told the court that it had now put procedures in place to prevent future pollution incidents.

In addition to the fine, the company was ordered to pay £8,706.71 in legal costs and a £120 victim surcharge.