Fishermen fight for quota rights

Fishing crews from Kent and Sussex demonstrated outside the High Court today for the start of a legal battle which they say will either save their livelihoods .. or end them. Andrea Thomas reports.

The case is being brought by the New Under Ten Fishermen's Association (NUTFA) with support of Greenpeace.

NUTFA represents many of the over three hundred small fishing boats registered in the South East.

They have been given permission by the court to argue that fish are not a private commodity but a public good held in trust by the government on behalf of all citizens.

A group of small-scale fishermen from the South East are in London for the first day of hearings in a historic High Court battle which could decide the 30-year-old question of who ultimately controls the UK's fishing quota.

The court decision will have an impact of hundreds of fishermen in our region, including in Hastings and Ramsgate.

The judicial review has been brought by against a decision by Defra to reallocate a small amount of consistently unused fishing quota held by producer organisations to small-scale fishermen.