Fishing clubs, fishery managers and anglers from across the region have been invited to a special workshop organised by Reading West MP and Parliamentary Angling Spokesman, Martin Salter, to take “a long hard look” at the problems of the River Kennet as a fishery. The workshop which will be chaired by Mr Salter will receive presentations from the Environment Agency and Natural England covering the latest results from the Environment Agency’s most recent survey of fish populations on the Kennet.

Martin Salter said:-

“Despite some significant improvements to sewage treatment works and some worker schemes to restore habitat and improve spawning sites it is clear that there remains a major problem with the recruitment of a number of fish species in the Kennet, particularly roach and barbel. Prior to the re-opening of the Kennet and Avon canal in 1990, the Berkshire Kennet was a pristine chalkstream and a superb coarse fishery in its lower reaches. Now the river downstream of Newbury is heavily coloured with silted up gravel beds, a lock of important weed and invertebrate life on which the fish depend. In addition we now have a massive biomass of the American signal crayfish. This disgusting foreign, freshwater lobster is doing untold harm to the banks and, I suspect, destroying both fish spawn and valuable food sources.”

He added:-

“This workshop is an opportunity for anglers and fishery managers to sit down with the relevant agencies, pool our collected knowledge and experience and take a long hard look at the problems facing what was once on of the best fishing rivers in the UK.”

Joe Baker, member of the Cleaner Kennet Campaign and the Kennet Valley Fisheries Association said:-

“We have had 15 years of surveys and plans and anglers want to see more action and less words.”