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the law states you must have a rod licence even to fish your own garden back pond if you wanted to !!!!!

Re : Grant for young offenders

Thank you for your e mail of 27 May regarding our funding of the Wetherby project. I would like to explain why we are involved with this and why we have increased our rod licence charges.

Wetherby Secure Learning College

A new unit is being built to house young offenders aged between 15 and 17 who have suffered sexual abuse. The aim of the unit is to teach skills to reduce re-offending.

The Environment Agency is tasked with increasing the social benefits from angling. Schemes like 'Get Hooked on Fishing' have proven to be cost-effective in helping vulnerable young people.

Prison officers were aware of the 'Get Hooked on Fishing' scheme and the benefits in relation to anti-social behaviour and therefore contacted us to contribute to a project in the prison. The intention was to use the balancing pond (which forms part of the development and helps reduce flood risk) to house fish.

We raised a project mandate that was approved at a national level from the funding stream which receives monies from extra licence sales. Our contribution was £20,000 to the project to purchase fish for the lake. A general angling licence will be needed to cover the site.

The facilities will be used by all the young people housed at Wetherby Secure Learning College. Two prison officers will be trained as level 2 coaches through the 'Get Hooked on Fishing' Programme and prisoners will be able get certificates of achievement.

The pond has a life of at least ten years, with 480 offenders staying in the prison each year for an average six months. Potentially 10,000 young people could be exposed to this project over this period.

Concessionary Rod Licences

Ministers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) recently approved our rod licence duties for 2008 through to 2010. These duties include a change in the level of concession for senior and disabled anglers to 33% from the current 50%. This will result in the standard annual licence increasing by £4.50 to £16.75 with effect from 1 April 2008. The cost of a licence for those who do not qualify for a concession has also increased, by £0.50 to £25.00.

The changes result from a review of our concessions in relation to those offered by other organisations. Other recreation providers offer concessions typically in the range of 5% to 30%. Before making these changes we consulted widely on our proposals. This consultation included our eight Regional Fisheries, Ecology & Recreation Advisory Committees. The proposed changes were also advertised in the angling and selected national press as required by legislation. Our Committees advised us to reduce the rate to 33%.

I hope that the above helps explain in more detail both why we have contributed to this project and the increase in our licence fees.

Yours sincerely

Phil Younge

Area Manager