To the delight of the country’s anglers, the Environment Agency has revealed today that Clarissa the Carp (Cyprinus carpio) – for 28 years a UK record weighing Carp – will be represented on the front of the Environment Agency’s fishing coarse & trout licence.

Clarissa was chosen to mark the centenary birth of renowned angler Richard “Dick” Walker, who, on 13 September 1952, landed a carp of 44lb which beat the previous record by nearly 13lb. The fish, caught from Redmire Pool, was taken to London Zoo aquarium.

In the 1950’s fish were routinely killed to establish their weight and often put in a glass cases. Walker hated the idea of killing such a magnificent creature and persuaded the aquarium’s curator to take her on. She was there named Clarissa the Carp – although Dick Walker himself called her Ravioli.

The choice for this year’s image will be welcomed by coarse fish anglers who have campaigned for Walker’s contribution to angling to be acknowledged. His record catch stood until 1980 when it was beaten by a fish of 51½ lb from the same water. As the inventor of ‘Arlesey bomb’ angling weight, the first electronic bite alarms and because of his involvement in the development of carbon fibre fishing rods, he is considered a pioneer.

This year’s image will be a carp and was designed by renowned angling and wildlife artist, David Miller. The other fishing licence images unveiled today are the gudgeon (Gobio gobio) and the salmon (Salmo salar).

Sales of fishing licences for the 2016/17 season raised £21 million. The money was used to restock rivers with 6,335,000 fish, encourage over 35,000 people to try angling for the first time and bring 2,330 successful prosecutions against crimes like poaching.

Kevin Austin, Director of Fisheries at the Environment Agency, said:

We’re delighted to reveal these new images as part of our continued drive to encourage people to give fishing a go. All the money raised from rod licence sales is used to protect and improve fish stocks and fisheries benefiting anglers.

David Miller, the artist who designed the rod licence, said:

Designing this year’s fishing licence combines 2 of my passions: fishing and art. The Environment Agency does a fantastic job and I’m proud to be supporting rod licence sales with my artwork. It’s been great to be able to capture a fish that has such historical significance in the fishing world.

Mike Heylin OBE Chairman British Record (Rod Caught) Fish Committee added:

This is a fine tribute to a fish and an angler who changed our perspective and excited a whole generation of anglers, many of whom will hold this licence with pride.

The fishing licence lasts for 12 months from the day it is bought, rather than expiring at the end of March each year. People are required to buy a fishing licence in order to fish legally in England, Wales and along the Border Esk in Scotland.

Anyone fishing illegally is cheating other licence paying anglers and can expect to be prosecuted and face a substantial fine. In 2016/ 2017 the Environment Agency checked 63,000 rod licences and prosecuted 2,795 anglers for fishing without a licence. Anyone can buy a fishing licence online from GOV.UK

ENDS

A Lincolnshire holiday park company has been ordered to pay over £8,500 after illegally burning waste on one of their sites.

Seaside Leisure Parks Ltd, which operates five parks across the county, was convicted for burning a waste pile consisting of mattresses, sofas, and plastic chairs among other things on 4 July 2017. The Environment Agency (EA), which brought this case against Seaside Leisure, also found evidence of previous waste fires on site.
When EA staff attended the fire in July 2017, they observed acrid smoke from the fire blowing across the caravan site – with the nearest caravan being only 25 meters away.

The Fire and Rescue Service had to attend to put out the fire. Following this incident, the company did not take the appropriate action to remove the waste for another month, instead leaving the waste and fire residues on site.
By not paying for legal disposure of the waste, Seaside Leisure Parks Ltd avoided costs of approximately £2,000. The company had previously been warned for the same type of offending in two letters from the EA in 2010. At interview, the company admitted that the waste costs formed a considerable part of their running costs.

Seaside Leisure Parks Ltd was convicted at Lincoln magistrates’ Court, and ordered to pay a £5,000 fine as well as £3,496.50 in costs and a victim surcharge of £170.

Commenting, EA Enforcement team leader Mark Rumble said:

Businesses have a legal duty to dispose of their waste correctly. This duty is in place to protect communities and the environment from pollution.

By burning waste illegally on site, Seaside Leisure Parks Ltd put people and wildlife at risk in the interest of financial gain. We hope this verdict demonstrates to other businesses the importance of complying with environmental laws. We will take action against those who do not comply.

The Environment Agency consult the public on certain applications for the abstraction and impoundment of water.

These notices explain:

• what the application is about
• which Environment Agency offices you can visit to see the application documents on the public register
• when you need to comment by

Natural England consults the public on proposals to change rural land use in England.

This notice explains:

• what the application is about
• how you can see the application documents
• when you need to comment by

This notice is published to comply with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) (Agriculture) (England) (No.2) Regulations 2006. Regulation 12.

Visitors to the drop in will have an opportunity to see how feedback from the last event in October has helped to shape options for flood alleviation scheme for Otley.

A review of the digital model of the river is now complete, and the testing of options in the model has begun, so the team would now like to share the findings from the work and get feedback for the next steps.

Representatives from Leeds City Council, Environment Agency and WSP (the consultants undertaking survey and investigation work) will be at the event to answer any questions and discuss the latest progress.

The drop in will be held at:

• The Core Otley, Unit 11 Orchard Gate, Otley LS21 3NX on Tuesday 13 March between 4–7pm

The town suffered flooding on three occasions between November and December 2015, which saw 74 properties affected. In the Autumn Statement 2016, Government announced £2 million to invest in a scheme to reduce the risk of flooding to homes and businesses.

The scheme is being led by Leeds City Council working closely with the Environment Agency.

Leader of Leeds City Council Councillor Judith Blake said:

Together with our partners we are continuing to make good progress on our plans for flood prevention measures in Otley. The modelling work on the river is finished and we are now testing the possible options. We want local residents and businesses to be as involved as possible in these plans as they develop, so would encourage people to go along to the drop-in session, find out more and give us their views.

John Woods, flood risk management advisor at the Environment Agency said:

We’re grateful to everyone who came along to the last event in October to give us your views and ideas. We have looked at these in detail with Leeds City Council’s engineers and consultants WSP and have tested a number of them in the digital model to assess their impact on flooding. Residents views are once again really important in helping us to shape the preferred option for Otley.

Work to pull together data to better understand the potential paths of flood water as well as collating historic and recent flood information began last year. The information from these investigations, carried out by consultants, WSP, has been used to update an existing digital model of the River Wharfe which has helped to form potential options for a scheme, which are now being tested.

The Otley Flood Alleviation Scheme is one of several schemes that is adopting a catchment-wide approach. This means the entire River Wharfe catchment area will be considered to help reduce flood risk. This approach looks at a combination of natural processes and engineered options to help slow the flow and catch water further up the catchment so that flood peaks are reduced further downstream.