Number of baliffs

[Eyghon]

Firstly thanks for doing this ;D

1) How many Bailiffs do you have in each Yorkshire area and North Notts area (Retford area in Particular)?
2) Do you keep records of how many people are checked every Month, if so how many of those are found to be without a Licence and then Prosecuted?
3) Why have I never seen a Bailiff in the 5 years since I started fishing again?

Regards

Craig

[compo]

in 30 years of fishing ive never seen or been checked by a baliff if 1 walked passed me i would not give a second glance ,

and can you tell us if the licence fee will go up again

[Deleted]

Hi and thanks too for putting your good selfs forward in question time! my question!!
I too have never been checked or seen a balif in the 20yrs fishing and when fustration got the better of me knowing of people locally fishing without a Licence i offered to yourselfs to baliff volentry in my local area, i had police checks and relevent qualifactions but was refused, one would think this would help us protect our local waters if the EA are busy with others issuses of if the manpower has been cut as with everything! thanks for reading!

[willothewisp]

How Many Caught in Yorkshire Without licences?
I presume you do keep records, so how many licence dodgers did your bailiffs catch fishing in Yorkshire between last April 1st and the end of December? How many were successfully prosecuted?

[envagencyyorkshire]

Q: How many Bailiffs do you have in each Yorkshire area and North Notts area (Retford area in Particular)?

There are currently 7 warranted officers in the Yorkshire Area.
I’m afraid I can’t answer the bit of the question relating to bailiff numbers in North Notts as Yorkshire Area doesn’t extend this far. If you want any further information then please contact our Customer Contact Centre on 08708 506 506.

[envagencyyorkshire]

Q: Do you keep records of how many people are checked every Month, if so how many of those are found to be without a Licence and then Prosecuted?

In the period 1 April 2010 to 19 January 2011 Environment Agency fisheries officers checked 15045 licences in Yorkshire. They reported 691 people for fishing offences. In this same period offenders paid £39,696 in fines and £43,414 in costs.

Have a look at this document which shows the national picture for rod licence enforcement for 2009/10:

www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Leisure/Full_annual_report_-final.pdf

As you can see in this period in the North East (so these figures include Northumbria) 27124 checks were made which resulted in 739 people being prosecuted for offences. Of the 739 prosecutions we took 734 were successful with the average fine being £101.34.

[envagencyyorkshire]

Q: Can you tell us if the licence fee will go up again next year?

A: No. The licence fee is staying fixed at the 2010/11 price

[envagencyyorkshire]

Q: Why have I never seen a Bailiff in the 5 years since I started fishing again?

We are very fortunate in Yorkshire that we have so many places where we can fish. While this is fantastic for anglers it means that with the resources available we simply cannot visit every water, every day. The fact that you haven’t seen a bailiff doesn’t mean that we haven’t visited the water, it just means that we were there when you weren’t. We try and ensure that all waters are checked at least once throughout the year. We all know that there are waters which have higher numbers of people fishing illegally. We visit these waters more frequently to make sure that we are putting more of our effort into catching people who are fishing illegally rather than spending lots of time checking anglers such as yourselves who fish within the law.

[Eyghon]

Quite good figures\results there I think. I started fishing again in 2006 and for the first 2 1\2 years I fished pretty much 7 days a week and never saw a Bailiff and still haven't.