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Worcester Swan Sanctuary.

OK, heads up, the situation in Worcester is this.

The fishing throughout the city centre, some of which is on land owned by the local authorities, the rest by the Dean & Chapter of Worcester Cathedral, has historically been free. As kids in the 70s we used to fish extensively along the Cathedral bank, which was known as the 'roach holes'. Kids also used to fish regularly from the King's School Rowing Club steps and the safe, flat, area adjacent to the bridge.

Sometime in the 80s, however, the Harrigan woman, of the Wychbold Swan Sanctuary, worked with the toursim & leisure department of Worcester City Council to create what is now the hated Swan Sanctuary. The Worcester & District United Anglers' Association was consulted and raised no objection - but why would it - the WDUAA had its own waters and certainly had no interest in this bit of free fishing in the town, that was essentially used by youngsters. Moreover, this was, and is, a match orientated club all too ready to make stupid rules just to make life hard for specialist anglers, so the point is that this was hardly a forward thinking organisation - in fact it was anally retentive and not at all the voice of anglers in Worcester.

Because the WDUAA agreed, so did the Dean & Chapter, and there was no PR fall out. In fact the whole thing was passed through chamber in and without the blink of an eye. The council official concerned obviously knew a good thing when he saw it (although incredibly this individual, Alan Stuttard, has the audacity to call himself an angler - he fishes the Teme, by the way!), and before we knew it the poxy swans were present in their hundreds (as we know completely contrary to their natural and intended habbitat), and became a tourist attraction in their own right. Townies annually flock in droves to feed the greedy stupid things all manner of rubbish, again contrary to their intended diet, thus creating a completely artificial environment.

The big problem is, however, that the Worcester swan sanctuary is such a big hit that it is bandied about in torism circles as best practice! Can you believe that?! The Sanctuary is also ridiculously long, on both sides of the river, even though the bloody swans predi9monently only gather in the area by the cafe, fountain and Brown's Restaurant, where the townies feed them.

Two years ago, I had enough of this, my kids being 11 and 14 at the time and the area would have been ideal for them to fish in relative safety close to home. That former stretch of free fishing represented a great resource for cash strapped and transport-less youngsters in our day, and with my kids frustrated at not being able to fish there (and they are, 2 B fair, luckier than most as they have various club tickets), I decided to challenge the ban.

A campaign of letters to the council met without success, so the gear was upped: a campaign of letters went to the local paper and I was interviewed by local radio and TV regarding the issue, but all to no avail. Harrigan was also interviewed and her angle was that as anglers could fish the rest of the river, we were being selfish by wanting to reduce the size of said poxy sanctuary; neither she or the city council could grasp the point.

Moreover, we really under estimated how popular the swans were and how unpopular anglers were locally - I was subjected to a campaign of very anti letters, some very personal, in the local press, and people even stopped me to have a pop when I was minding my own business shopping in Tesco!!

The City Council (Mr Stuttard) made it quite clear that there would be no compromise, supported by council, and threatened us with prosecution should we ignore the ban and fish. Quite how they think they could deal with a mass 'fish-in' I don't know - it isn't in any shape or form a police matter, and recently we couldn't find an EA bailiff to deal with an incident involving the safety of youngsters locally on June 16th! (see thread: The Darker Side of June 16th).

So that is the very disappointing position at Worcester. There can be no doubt that the Harrigan woman moved her attention to Bewdly etc after our challenge at Worcester a couple of years ago failed and thus strengthened her arm. Had the city of Worcester been fished by adults and the likes of Des Taylor, they would never have got away with it here - but 20 odd years ago what voice had a few kids got?

Anyway, so far as swans go I have adopted this attitude: "Sod em all, let bird flu sort em out!".

Congrats to our old mate and hero Des and everyone who helped thwart the Harrigan at Bewdley..

Cheers

Dilip Sarkar