Peak District fishing shop to host fundraising event with lawyers fighting water pollution

The family-run Mallon & Green, on King Street in Bakewell, is inviting anglers and anyone else with environmental concerns to hear from the Fish Legal team on Thursday, March 14, 5.30-7.30pm.

A spokesperson for the organisers said: “Fish Legal is a not-for-profit organisation of dedicated lawyers who use the law on behalf of anglers to fight polluters and others who damage and threaten the water environment.

“It secures compensation for its members to help restore polluted waters and challenges Government and regulators when they fail to protect fisheries.”

Formerly known as the Anglers’ Conservation Association (ACA), the organisation’s legal actions have sparked a great deal of public and media interest in water pollution in recent years.

Further back in its history, it won a landmark 1953 case involving multiple sources of pollution on the River Derwent, where water flowing past the Pride of Derby angling club was described as ‘‘black, opaque, hot and stinking; the bottom was carpeted with sewage fungus,” decimating the river’s salmon population in the space of a decade.

The case resulted in polluters having to cough up the equivalent of £33million in reparations and established lasting legal precedents.

More recently, Fish Legal secured a Derbyshire angling club £20,000 in an out-of-court settlement with an industrial cleaning company that in February 2018 polluted a lake with cyanide, causing a major fish kill.

The chemical spilled from a ruptured tank at an industrial estate near Heanor in Derbyshire while a lorry was being unloaded at a printing plant. The highly toxic liquid ran down a road and into a drain feeding Adams Pond in Shipley Country Park, which is leased by the National Coal Board Area No.5 angling club.

At the Bakewell event, lawyers will be speaking about their work, answering questions and hosting a charity auction to raise vital funds, with lots including fly fishing experiences, both local and further afield, as well as products from Yeti and Orvis UK.

There will be complimentary wine, nibbles and beers from Lakedown Brewing Company – a brewery owned by Roger Daltry, legendary frontman of The Who and a keen angler.