Dear Seafoodies
Here at Bute Street Seafoodie HQ spring has very much sprung! The sun is shining, the winter coats are staying snugly on the coat rack and Artoo and his girlfriend Millie are having great fun in the park rolling in a lot of very fresh fox poo. On that uplifting note, may I take the opportunity to welcome on board recent new subscribers.
Bute Street Seafoodie as a platform has always striven to maintain a clear distance away from politics. However, anyone who writes on the topics of provenance, seasonality and sustainability will inevitably find themselves sailing close to one or more political winds. And that’s before the unimaginably tangled web that is the UK’s fisheries management is woven into the mix. Forgive me if, on this rare occasion, I crave your indulgence.
Last weekend I met with my local MP and two local councillors in the Bute Street farmers’ market along with representatives from the market management. The objectives of the meeting were twofold.
First, to encourage the councillors and the market management to re-engage in discussions about the council’s plans to pedestrianise the street and the impact those plans would have on the functioning of the market.
Second, to raise a particularly concerning issue, with the MP, of fishing vessels known as ‘fly-shooters’ operating very close to the UK’s shoreline. These highly efficient, almost all foreign-operated, factory boats hoover up everything in their vicinity to the extent that catches for the small inshore boats are decimated and stocks of certain species are left dangerously depleted. This article in The Guardian explains the issue very clearly.
My point to the MP, and potentially others out there, is that the damage being done to fish stocks, communities and livelihoods is not only a matter for the MPs of coastal constituencies to take seriously. Where quality produce coming to a farmers’ market, however distant from its origin, is under threat, so is the opportunity for the buyer of that quality produce under threat. I am therefore urging my MP, as the elected representative of a constituency of consumers, to add her voice in Parliament to those raising concerns over this very aggressive practice. Sadly I have it on authority that such is the scale and speed of the destruction, much of the damage may have already been done.
