Reading West MP and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Angling hosted a meeting in Parliament to support the Angling Trust, the new body to represent all anglers in England, at a meeting of the APPG Angling in Westminster. 

The Trust was formed in January 2009 by a merger of six angling bodies and has since recruited 13,500 individuals and more than 1,300 clubs to membership.  The new organisation has been confirmed as the National Governing Body for all angling.  It is responsible for representing the nation’s 3.5 million anglers who contribute more than £3 billion to the UK economy and carry out millions of pounds worth of environmental improvements every year.

Angling is more popular than ever, with freshwater rod licence sales soaring last year to 1.5 million from 1.3 million in the previous year.  The Trust is aiming to sustain and continue this growth and ensure that there are plenty of fish to catch and safe and clean places for people of all ages to catch them.

The organisation also manages the England angling teams, who represent their country in all disciplines at international competitions.  England leads the world in angling success and the formation of the new single representative body has been seen as a positive move for the competition side of the sport as well.

“I was delighted to hold this meeting to highlight the excellent work done by the Angling Trust, and even more pleased that ten Parliamentary colleagues signed up as members on the day.”

Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive of the Angling Trust said “we are very grateful to Martin Salter for agreeing to host the meeting for the Angling Trust.  Millions of anglers in England need a listening ear in Parliament to hear their concerns about pollution, over-abstraction, commercial over-fishing at sea, access restrictions and a host of other issues which affect the quality of their sport.  We look forward to working closely with Martin to ensure that the anglers’ voice is heard.”