The Environment Agency is reviewing its approach to poaching and illegal fishing after campaigners met a Government minister.
Former Angling Trust enforcement manager Dilip Sarkar, who resigned from the position last year in frustration at a perceived lack of back-up from the EA, was given an online audience with junior Environment Minister Rebecca Pow.
Dilip was joined by fellow former police officers Giles Evans and Mark Gregory, both of whom also quit the Fisheries Enforcement Support Service after raising concerns that the EA rarely followed up on intelligence gathered by the Trust’s Voluntary Bailiff Service.
After the meeting, the minister instructed the EA to co-operate with the trio as part of a formal review into freshwater fisheries enforcement, though the agency said it would be doing so as part of an existing wider review, not a new one.
Dilip said the meeting was a “warning shot across the bows” of the “complacent” agency and added that he looked forward to sharing his insight.
“My colleagues and I are independent parties and our only agenda is seeing fish and fisheries better protected and anglers given a better service,” he said.