ANNUAL PLAN 2024/25 21 Fisheries Cockle FMP Last year, we began drafting our first district-specific fisheries management plan (FMP), which will focus on one of our largest and most economically significant fisheries, cockles. This year, we will finalise a draft Cockle FMP and consult on it with stakeholders, before bringing it to our members for agreement. Thereafter, we will start to look at implementing the FMP in time for our 2025/26 season. The FMP will set out management principles for our cockle beds across the district, and will focus on things such as survey schedules, biomass and maturity assessments, thresholds for opening, appropriate use of total allowable catches, effort restrictions, economic conditions, cold weather closures and bird food modelling. Ultimately, it will provide a meaningful framework from which officers, members and stakeholders can work to understand how we will manage our cockle fisheries year-on-year and over the longer-term. Lead Officer: Head of Science Netting Byelaw Last year, we began drafting our new byelaw to better regulate our static net fishing activities across the district and worked closely with members to develop its content. This byelaw will implement a flexible permit scheme for commercial and recreational fixed net users, whether operating from a vessel or shore-based. It will legitimise this important fishery and provide consistent regulation across the entire district, whilst enabling the Authority to react quickly to changing circumstances so as to better manage netting for the benefit of affected species, local communities and fishers themselves. As we transitioned from 2023/24 into 2024/25, we had finished drafting the byelaw and had taken it out to consultation with stakeholders. Early this year, we hope to gain internal agreement with members on the byelaw’s final content and then begin the formal quality assurance and implementation process with MMO and Defra. We would hope to have the byelaw implemented within this reporting period, but to some extent, this is dependent on external factors within MMO and Defra, and so this cannot be guaranteed. Lead Officer: Head of Enforcement
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