Anglers scupper Sawley hydro plan

The plan to provide 'green' energy by harnessing the Trent at Sawley Weir has been scuppered—by the anglers.

The Pride of Derby Angling Association has won an injunction to stop the building of the hydro power scheme at Sawley Weir at a four days trial at Nottingham County Court against the developers the Small Hydro Company and Canal & River Trust.

Freehold rights

Acting for the association, Fish Legal maintained the development would have destroyed the enjoyment of a prime stretch of river, of which it owns the freehold rights.

The Court heard that neither the developers nor CaRT consulted with the Pride of Derby Angling Association until very late in the planning,  and did not make careful enquiries about the fishing rights at the start of the process.

Went ahead

The judge stated that the developer and CaRT had either  ignored or were aware of the risks, both to the scheme and the fishing rights, but they still went ahead with the plans.

Had the scheme gone ahead the river banks would have been completely fenced off with 150 metre long fencing, with anglers expected to go into a compound on to high platforms via a locked gate.

Environment Agency

A licence had been granted by the Environment Agency, but this was criticised as a failure to fulfil its statutory duty to consider and give due weight to fisheries when granting licences.

The hydro scheme at Sawley Weir was one of many planned across the rivers of the country, with it being stated they are 'often backed by private equity and major financial institutions, who are engaged in a gold rush to make profits from generating hydro power principally because of generous feed-in tariffs from the taxpayer'.

Little power

It was stated that if all the 26,000 sites identified by the Environment Agency which might be suitable for hydro power were to be developed, they would still generate less than 0.5% of the nation's electricity supply.  But the official figure is stated at 1.4%—nearly three times that amount.

However, over the past 16 years, we have seen little angling activity on the part of the river near the weir, it being next to the noisy traffic on the M1 Motorway bridge, with the anglers preferring the quieter reach further upstream near Derwent Mouth.