Fishing club chaired by singer threatens court action over abstraction it says is putting rare trout population at risk
The singer and environmentalist Feargal Sharkey is threatening to take the Environment Agency to court for draining a river that hosts the oldest fishing club in England and putting a rare population of brown trout at risk.
The former Undertones frontman chairs the Amwell Magna Fishery, which has used the secluded stretch of the River Lea in Hertfordshire since 1841.
Lawyers for the fishery have written to the EA to order the regulator to immediately stop abstracting from that section of the river, saying they will commence a judicial review if it does not comply.
The EA has been accused of illegally abstracting from this section of the Lea, which hosts the only population of breeding brown trout on the watercourse. The fishing club says this will kill off the fish, which need a certain level of oxygen to live.
