Fishermen's fight for a new landing quay in Helford upsets some locals

Watch Inside Out on BBC1 tonight at 7.30 for an in-depth look at this story.

Catch it in the news or on BBC iPlayer

After five years of trying, Helford fishermen including Chris Bean (Lady Hamilton), have still to move forward in their plans to have a landing quay and small road built to allow for a safer working environment . Many 'local' residents have written to object to the construction work. A significant percentage of the objections come from second home owners who have property in the tiny village.

Cornwall is what it is and owes much of its culture, heritage and financial dependence to commercial and leisure maritime activities, which includes fishing.

What is considered 'quaint' by many visitors is, in fact, the activities of very real working lives and the fabric of many communities where people are actively engaged in fishing for a living - these people and their way of life must be allowed to evolve as their have thier ancestors before them - no one should be able to halt progress and 'preserve' the past as a living edifice by means of privilege, money or other means and deprive these artisnal workers of living their lives as their needs dictate - especially people like Chris Bean who looks to the future and goes to great lengths to fish for and market the very highest quality fish - much of which is supplied to sushi chefs 'up country'. London Town, where many second-home owners live or work is home to many an ancient monument offering an indication of life in the past; the significance of St Paul's Cathedral is no less diminished in being surrounded by modernity - the two co-exist. If these people wanted control over 'their' plot they should have bought a much larger little bit of England (or Cornwall) sans neighbours - as it is, they have bought into the village of Helford and should therefore accept all that that entails - it is not a living museum or heritage site for those permanent residents who live in and around the village.





In this year that celebrates the bi-centennial of Darwin's birth and his book, Origin of the Species, this incident represents a far more serious interruption in the natural evolution of our working environment than resident who recently complained bitterly about the noise emanating from some boats landing fish in Newlyn Harbour during the night!

See the full story here.

A sorry site as the Roseland sinks

Lying against the quay just as the tide starts to make, the Roseland is watched over by shore staff from Stevenson's who will have the task of pumping out and refloating her later to day...
they will have to wait until the tide is falling this afternoon before they can begin pumping and attempt to find the cause of the leak....
the Rosleand was converted to gill netting in the ealry 90s but has not been active fishing since the 1970s when she was side trawling......
passing lifeboat from Ilfracombe heads out of the gaps now the weather has fined away for her trip round the corner and up the channel to her home base.....

with bad weather continuing from last Thursday there were only a handful of fish lots on the market this morning - biggest was 3 tons of high quality pollack from the CarolH that had sailed on Monday and shot off the Lizard - the fish made good prices averaging around £4+ a kilo - here Edwin, from Ocean Fish, reports back to base on a small shot of sprats taken by their boat, the Resolute ,overnight.

5000 odd miles to go

Looks like it is not only Newlyn under heavy skies - check out the latest news from Pete Goss aboard the Spirit of Mystery, three days out and only 150 miles on the log!

Christopher Booker from the Telegraph wades in to defend Newlyn's 'pirates' and their Mums

Outspoken and forthright, Christopher Booker writes in the Telegraph to highlight the plight of those recently convicted in the Black Fish case. He describes the stituation as, "A draconian quota sytem which forces fishermen to throw countless millions of saleable fish dead back into the sea".

Booker highlights two issues to arise from the case, namely that the fishermen concerned were prevented from speaking and that further research needs to be carried out to ascertain whether or not there was "quota available to lease" so that the fish could have been caught legally.

Christopher Booker often writes to champion the case of the UK versus Brussels and is a supporter of UKIP .

A must this June for traditional boat fans - Looe Luggers

This year's Looe Luggers festival promises to be the best yet with a promise of several Breton classic sail boats joing in the fun - find out more from the local paper, Looe Today. No doubt the local fleet of luggers (Barnabus, Happy Return, Our Grace, Dolly Pentreath) will be in attendance, including the Ripple which should be doing the rounds now she is afloat and fully rigged.

Gales and a weekend off for the fleet

A few residents can keep an eye on Tom from the comfort of their homes......
while two local swans keep their heads down as gale force winds whip across Penzance Boating Pool in Wherry Town.....
this chart, courtesy of the NOAA's website shows just how quickly the wind came on Saturday evening, peaking at 52 knots before dropping back to around 30 knots for the duration of Sunday.....
a member of the Responsible Fishing Scheme gets to fly the flag, literally.......
over in Penzance Harbour their are some serious pieces of heavy lifting gear against the quays....
a good handful of locally caught langoustine were on offer at WS&S's fish boutique, shoppers are riminded they can place an order and pick it up after completing their shopping in town....
waiting for a break in the weather the Crystal Sea II......
as usual, Phil on the gillnetter Carol H is keen to take ice and get away first for the next neap tide.....
the new crabber Emma Louise is considerbaly longer than fleet sister the Dom Bosco.....
while the final member of the Rowse fleet is blown off he quayside in the wild condtitons.....
as the sun rises, Silver Dawn reflects some early morning light.......
the fishing day signal (which should not, of course, be shown in port!) - two inverted cones can take many forms - is intended to indicate to other vessels during daylight that the vesel concerned is engaged in fishing activities....
this one has seen better days.....
and used to look like this......
a sign of the times perhaps, one of the better looking housing developments in the area has ceased to progress......

someone has gone to the trouble of making a rope fender for a specific purpose on the bow of the Chloe T.....

Anodes galore

With sixteen anodes visible on the starboard quarter of the Billy Rowney there must be around 60 in total needed to protect the boat - at £20 each that's lot of cuttles.....
waiting for high water and the journey back down the slip......
there must be a drop left somewhere......
ready for a nother big trip, boxes for cuttles sit on the quay alkongside the St Georges......
there's a temporary gap in the side of the Rowney.....

and a full set of scaffolding around the gantry up forar'd.