Cockling on the Dee: 'We want to manage this fishery properly to get a regular income'

For the first time in two decades, one of Britain's richest shellfish banks has been open three seasons running, following strict curbs on a national free-for-all which led to the deaths of 21 Chinese cockle-pickers in Morecambe bay six years ago . High-powered telescopes, an amphibious truck and police helicopter patrols now govern work on the sandbanks of the river Dee estuary, where new licensing limits the number of fishermen to 50, compared to an estimated 700 at the time of the disaster further north. The tough regulations passed after Morecambe, which saw three cockling gangmasters jailed, also protect other wildlife that depends on cockling grounds such as the Dee. Alan Winstone, the agency's area manager for the estuary, says that populations of many animals, from birds to molluscs had recovered when chemical plants, papermills and other heavy polluters closed in the late 20th century, and the local steelworks contracted. "The trouble was, news spread that the cockles were abundant, and demand for them in Spain and Portugal was such that hundreds of pickers came," he said. With prices of up to £1,600 a tonne and few regulations, the banks would be picked clean, waterfowl and seabirds were disrupted and cockling was pointless for the next couple of years. Pete Parry, a former builder who started cockling during the haphazard boom but has stuck with it and now has one of the 50 licences, he welcomes the efforts to ensure a smaller but steadier supply: "It was boom and bust and we don't want to go back to that," he said at Greenfield dock, the cocklers' main landing points, which lies amid the concrete rubble of a former chemical plant. Tensions still surround the freewheeling industry, however, with resentment over the failure of some local cocklers to win a licence in the open application process – which was five times oversubscribed. More than £40,000 of vandalism was caused to boats and other equipment on the estuary last year, most of it directed against outsiders from south Wales and Scotland. Allocations cannot legally favour locals, but the agency – and most cocklers – hope that as Dee fishermen win licences elsewhere, the system will settle down. Parry's three-strong team have a Scottish licence and get along well with Richard Pullen and Owen Williams, from Swansea, who also catch the ebbing tide from Greenfield to spend five hours using traditional, Welsh short-handled rakes and riddles (to screen out immature cockles) on Salisbury banks. The seabird protection and other limits affect them all, though, especially in the early summer when hot weather can set back cockle growth. Parry says: "We get six months now but we'd really like nine. It's not necessarily to harvest more cockles, but to tend the beds for longer, like farmers." The agency has now given some ground, allowing a maximum of six days' fishing in May this year after the cocklers on-the-ground expertise was borne out by its own surveys. Rick Prichard says: "We had a look-out there and one bank was so densely packed with cockles that they weren't thriving, especially with the sun on them this year, which they don't like." Meanwhile the surveillance continues, with enforcement officer Elwyn Roberts monitoring cockling teams through a long-range scope from the end of the iron-slag breakwater which protects the port of Mostyn. Film has been used in court to prosecute unlicensed cocklers. Other have been arrested at night by teams waiting at the estuary's half-dozen landings following heat-sensor searches by the police helicopter. More important in the long term, says Prichard, is working with the fishermen to give more structure and stability to the trade. Prices range between £400 and £1,800 a tonne at the moment, dependent on size, enough to make a living but also an incentive to farm the beds steadily. Each cockler is currently limited to 300kg take per day, a figure adjusted according to regular surveys of the sandbanks. The agency reckons that since licensing and the harvest dates and catch limits were introduced in 2008, the Dee's cockles have earned £1,160,000 for their catchers. David Edwell of Environment Agency Wales, whose Flint bank shares the sands with the "long rakers" of the English Wirral, says: "The early signs are that next year will be even better than this one." "We want to manage this fishery properly so the cocklers get a good, regular income from the beds. What we learn from that will then help to guide the management of other cockle fisheries across the UK." • This article was amended on 19 July 2010 to correct the price range for cockles and the spelling of some names.