Saturday 26 December 2009

Morecambe Bay cockling

A couple of days before Chrismas I was speaking with a fisherman. In fact he is one of the few remaining fishermen on Morecambe Bay and among other things he was telling me about cockling. The beds are closed at the moment so there is no risk of anyone dying or at least this risk should be minimal. He told me that he don't want to restrict access to the bay because individuals may want to go out and pick a few cockles. Of course this access has to be balanced with safety and the greatest dangers came from the channels formed by the rivers.

He found it hard to believe that anyone would think that they could go cockling at night and this made me ask about who gets a licence. I am still not quite sure who gets the licence but he didn't want anyone to ask him whether he was competent to be on the bay but he understood that checks had to be in place. However he did assure me that a disaster like that of February 2004 should not happen again.

I wrote about J.S. Mill and how his thoughts on freedom applied to dog walkers. Take a look back at the 21st December and you will see that Mill is just as relevant to cockling.

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