RURAL ECONOMY AND CONNECTIVITY COMMITTEE

CALL FOR EVIDENCE ON THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE RURAL ECONOMY AND CONNECTIVITY IN SCOTLAND

SUBMISSION FROM DEE DISTRICT SALMON FISHERY BOARD AND RIVER DEE TRUST

In response to the call for evidence, we are fully in agreement with the response of our representative body, Fisheries Management Scotland (FMS), and would like to provide some specific evidence from the Aberdeenshire Dee.

The River Dee has two fishery management organisations that work together for best effect: The Dee District Salmon Fishery Board is a statutory body (there are 41 Fishery Boards in Scotland) tasked with protecting and enhancing stocks of salmon and sea trout. The Board comprises fishery owners, angling representatives and co-optees from SEPA, SNH, local Council and the Cairngorms National Park Authority. The River Dee Trust is a community-based charity tasked with protecting and restoring the River Dee, its fish stocks and other wildlife, and delivering education within the local community. It is one of 25 Fisheries Trusts in Scotland.

The Dee Fishery Board and River Dee Trust jointly invested £200,000 into river restoration works in the 2019/20 financial year. Fishing beats directly support this work as 40% of the joint Board/Trust income is derived from the assessment – the tax collected from the fishery owners.

As highlighted by FMS, the assessment is based on catches of salmon and this is an unsustainable model. Catches have been critically low on the Dee since 2013 and over the last three years almost none of the fisheries on the Dee made any profit, despite their investment (through the assessment) into the river.

Covid-19 has had a major additional impact on fishing beats due to the closure of their beats for 10 weeks. Whilst angling resumed at the end of May, the vast majority of the river is in rural areas, meaning that the travel restrictions prevented anglers from reaching the river to fish, in effect having extra impact to these fragile rural economies. The fisheries could not operate as businesses until 15th July when anglers could actually travel to reach the river. Therefore, with the Dee fishing season running from February to mid-October, 45% of the season was lost for fishing beats. Furthermore, for some beats the spring season is their main period for selling fishing. We know of no fishing beats that have received government support for this lost business.

In response to this major impact being felt by fishing beats, the Dee Fishery Board reduced the assessment that fishing proprietors pay by 40%, meaning a reduction in Board income of £166,000. A support mechanism such as business rates relief would have helped the Fishery Board greatly, if it had been applicable to the fisheries.

Despite the Board’s loss of income, its duties have continued throughout lockdown and in some areas the workload has increased – for example, more effort has been required for policing the river, and in April we saw a 400% increase in incidents compared to April 2019, which we believe was a result of more illegal fishing due to the lockdown restrictions.

The Trust has also seen a loss of income, and overall we forecast a 40% loss in income for 2020/21 due to loss of contract works, projects, and reduced donations. The loss will be increased further though if our main annual fundraising event is not able to go ahead. An application to the Third Sector Resilience Fund was unsuccessful due to the Trust’s responsible reserves policy, meaning this money that had been raised for river restoration has had to be used to keep the Trust operating.

An overall anticipated loss between the Board and Trust of nearly £300,000 in 2020 translates to less support for the river. At a time when salmon stocks are reaching crisis point, this is not the time to draw back on our efforts and we must find a way to maintain capacity for delivering work in future years.