A report on a recent a meeting of the Rother DC Byelaws scrutiny committee to dicuss the proposed changes to bylaws.

On Tuesday 19 July we attended a meeting of the Rother District Council Byelaw scrutiny committee along with representatives from IFCA the Angling Trust and the Bexhill Sea Angling Club. Here is a summary of the meeting compiled by one of the members present:

This was the first meeting of the Rother council bye laws working group since the closure of the consultation period on proposed byelaw changes affecting angling from the shore. 

The group consists of five councillors.  All five, with six council officers, attended this meeting

together with six invited anglers. 

Three anglers were from Bexhill Angling Club (Arthur Freeman the club chairman, Melvyn Adrain and Tim Macpherson), both angling representatives on the Sussex IFCA (Steve Hanks and GrahamFurness) and the Sussex sea angling representative of the Angling Trust (Alan Brothers). Three presentations were made to the meeting all explaining why this bye law was wrong and unnecessary..

It was reported that there had been 291 responses to the consultation which the chief executive said was “quite good”.  These included one from the sea anglers together with a 2,000 signature petition opposing the changes.

In discussion, Councillor Mrs. D.C. Williams and Councillor J.A. Lee both seriously questioned the need for the proposed bye laws, and that the matter could perhaps better be settled by the use of a code of conduct.  Councillor S.D. Elford supported this.  Councillor C.N. Ramus did not join the discussion because he felt he was not qualified to as a he represented a ward away from Bexhill itself

The council chief executive (Derek Stevens) summarised the reasons why it might be best to use a code of conduct instead of bye laws, to control any bad behaviour by  a very small minority of anglers on the beaches.

At this stage it was becomoing clear that the thinking of the group was to work out a way to replace

the proposed bye law changes with a less draconian method possibly by using an amended version of 

a code of conduct provided by the anglers the previous month.

The chairman commented that it had been “a very, very good discussion”.  He asked the anglers if 

they had any further comments, thanked them for attending and closed the meeting.

What was clear from this meeting is that the whole issue had been inlcuded by council officials in 

order to allow the Council to apply for a best beach award - the councillors had little idea that the 

proposed ban would cause such trouble. The Chief Executive, Derek Stevens, broke with his usual 

impartiality by stating he thought the bye law was not the right way to deal with the issue and 

almost instructed the officials there and then to remove it from the draft. 

It seemed clear to us, having had a chance to lobby the councillors in a coffee break, that if it came to

a vote three of the councillors would want the clause removed.

However there seemed to be little prospect of the second clause in the bye law being removed as this

is a form of words that the Department of Communities has directed councils to include when

updating bye laws.

So the campaign was successful and thanks need to go to Bexhill angler Neil Smith in particular for

his efforts in getting the petition signed and delivered - not to mention all the other people worked 

to ensure this bye law was amended. .