New rules to preserve cod stocks threaten the fishing industry in a Sussex port town, an MP has claimed.
Norman Baker said European quotas intended to help the fish population recover did not reflect actual cod numbers in the eastern Channel.
He has written to fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw saying measures to improve North Sea stocks would harm Newhaven's fleet which fished off the south coast where cod was plentiful.
He said: "Although sustainable fishing is an extremely important issue, which I am fully supportive of, I am concerned fishing quotas may be heavily restricted in an area where fish stocks are healthy.
"Over the last seven years, half the fishing fleet between Folkestone and Shoreham has been lost and it is important further losses do not take place due to unnecessarily restrictive quotas.
"This is not simply a biological and environmental issue. People's livelihoods are at stake."
Wednesday March 17, 2004
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