Toby on Tuesday 

“Fish ‘n’ Ships twice please”

 

Filey is the jewel in the crown of Britain’s East Coast.   Last October the Guardian wrote, “What’s going for it?   What a bay!   What a beach!   The Costas don’t have anything like Filey.   Koh Samui pales.   Malibu?   Pah!”   Yet the days are long gone since Princess Mary, the old Princess Royal, came with her family from Harewood to spend their Summer holidays in a resort that was as fashionable as San Tropez and nowhere near as tacky!   Now something really radical is needed to restore Filey’s glory days.

Last week, I wrote about UKIP’s policy of recovering the 200-mile limit on our old North Sea fishing grounds, so wantonly abandoned by Ted Heath’s government in 1972.   Nearly 70% of Europe’s fishing grounds were given away in return for 13% of the EU fishing quota.   Now almost £3 billion a year of seafood – some 2/3rds of our annual consumption – has to be imported, much of it cod and haddock from Norway and Russia.   Vast international factory fishing fleets have colonised our waters and decimated our remaining stocks, yet we are powerless to do anything about it.   Extricating ourselves from this scandal would be the catalyst for the regeneration of Filey.

On Thursday I had the privilege of meeting two exceptionally determined and committed Filey campaigners, Tony Green and Peter Bradney of Fight4Filey, who have given many years and much thought to rebuilding the fortunes of their lovely town.   We talked about the distinct character of Filey and the need not to be overshadowed by neighbouring Scarborough, their plans for an all-weather visitor centre which could well be themed on the many links to the old Baltic trade with Sweden, Finland and Russia, the wish to create the kind of modern gastro culture which has served Padstow in Cornwall and Whitby up the coast so well, and the hope of returning boat building to Filey with all the other trades that would service it.   We agreed that one precondition for all these things and much else besides would be for Britain finally to bid farewell to the disaster that is the Common Fisheries Policy.   But even as work starts on achieving this goal, there is no reason why the preliminary steps cannot be put in place for Filey immediately after May’s General Election, not least by restoring the town’s many Baltic links.

You can find out more about Tony Green’s and Peter Bradney’s superb campaign for the place they love if you google Fight4Filey or www.fileybay.com.   They recognise fully the need for a vibrant new future for Filey once Britain has withdrawn from the clutches of the EU, but they know too that the work of regeneration must start now.   When we joined the EU all those years ago Ted Heath, in his graceless and curmudgeonly way, declared that the only people who could possibly oppose his terms of entry were “just a few fishermen.”   Well I can say to the ghost of Ted Heath, wherever that may be, that he underestimated the courage and determination of people like Tony Green, Peter Bradney and all the other good men and women of Filey.   My hope is that after 7th May next I can join with them and help to achieve their dreams!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby