© Shutterstock / Tomasz Kozal Commercial fishing is a tiny contributor to the UK economy. In 2023, UK vessels landed approximately 719,000 tonnes of sea fish with a value of £1.1 billion.
It amounts to around 0.03% of total economic output and around 5% of the broader agriculture, forestry and fishing sector.
Compare this with UK offshore wind, with its 15 GW of installed capacity and current GVA per GW installed of around £1.8 billion and rising.
David is small, semi-nomadic and works across a vast sea area; Goliath is massive and growing rapidly.
Whilst Big Wind occupies clearly defined areas, it overlaps massively into traditional fishing grounds and is becoming a major UK employer.
The fishing industry eventually learned to live with Big Oil, which is now on the wane, but living with territory-guzzling offshore wind farms – fixed and floating – may prove a lot more challenging.
Fishing feels threatened.
In March, the fisheries research lab put out a report that maps out those fears and is sounding alarm bells at the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) and National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations (NFFO) covering England and Wales.
Key findings included:
- Fishermen are being adversely impacted by displacement from offshore wind farms.
- Mobile and static gears are affected, with small (<15m) vessels less resilient to impacts.
- There is a lack of standardisation in compensation payments made to fishermen.
- Fishermen are concerned about the ecological impacts on target species and habitats.
- Best practice guidelines for industry need to be embedded in legal frameworks.
Professor Nicky Beaumont, co-author of the study and head of Plymouth Marine Lab’s sea and society team, is clear that there needs to be a policy rethink at government level.
“Our research makes it clear that best practice guidelines for industry need to be embedded in legal frameworks,” she said.
“With offshore wind installations increasing exponentially, there is a need to ensure a sustainable and fair energy transition, supported by increased collaboration and equity between commercial fishermen and energy companies.”
© Supplied by Global Energy GroupThe UK fishing industry, with 4,269 active vessels and employing over 6,800 fishermen in 2021, generated a turnover of £802 million with a profit of £222 million.
Meanwhile, the UK offshore wind industry directly employed 17,000 people in 2023, with projections of over 88,500 jobs required by 2026.
Professor Beaumont warns that, while offshore wind may vastly exceed fisheries in monetary value, these figures do not account for the cultural heritage value of fisheries, which are vital to many coastal communities and important in fisheries policy development.
The Plymouth team quartered the British coastline in 2022, mapping out the concerns of fishermen, and those worries appear to be many.
Of the offshore wind farms currently in operation or under construction, Seagreen – off Scotland’s Angus coast – was cited most frequently as impacting fishing activities, which at the time of the survey was the most recent to become operational (in 2023), and also the deepest fixed-base turbine wind farm in the UK.
Other wind farms frequently cited as impacting fishing activities were Barrow (Western Irish Sea), Dogger Bank (Southern North Sea), Beatrice (off Caithness), Moray East and West (Moray Firth) and Walney (Irish Sea).
However, it was found that Gunfleet Sands, London Array (both Southern NS) and Methil Demo (Firth of Forth) were not indicated as causing an impact by any of the respondents.
In relation to the expected impact of pre-construction or proposed wind farms (as of January 2024), Bell Rock and Berwick Bank (SE Scotland) and Caledonia (Outer Moray Firth) were cited most frequently.
The report says: “This study demonstrates that most wind farms in planning or operation in UK waters are causing impacts on commercial fishing.
“A broad range of vessel sizes, gear types and respondents are represented in this study, indicating that impacts of offshore wind farms are not limited to a particular fishing sector, fleet or gear type.”
It goes on to say that the many factors identified mean that actions to mitigate the impacts of displacement are difficult to balance with economic and logistical viability.
“The knock-on effects of displacement ripple up and down the coast from the point of impact, as fishers displaced from one location lead to increased fishing pressure and spatial squeeze in a different location.
“Displacement to less productive fishing grounds also requires more fishing effort to land the same catch.”
© Supplied by Nigel Millard / MSCSFF chief executive Elspeth Macdonald told Energy Voice: “What this paper does is underpin what we and the NFFO have been saying for some time, that expansion of offshore wind poses a huge threat to the fishing industry.
“Organisations such as SFF have been saying that publicly it’s also clear that individual fishermen are themselves very worried about it and have expressed those concerns.”
Macdonald is critical of the government.
“How it often feels to us is that government says all the right things, has this blue economy vision and all of those great things but, at the end of the day, it actually feels like government is picking winners and losers and, at the moment they seem unable to see past the wind industry as the only game in town.
“It’s very short-sighted to be prioritising energy production over food production. We have to eat.
“The Plymouth study was fairly small-scale, but it is representative of people in the industry. They are very concerned about the fact that they’ve worked hard to develop efficient, profitable businesses producing food.
“At best, in many cases, these businesses are rendered less efficient because of the mounting pressures from offshore wind.”
Meanwhile, in English and Welsh coastal waters, fishermen face the possible imposition of nine more Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in part to make up for the perceived damage to the marine environment inflicted by offshore wind.
© Supplied by OEUKMight this be extended to Scotland?
According to Macdonald, under the UK Habitats Regulations, there is a legal obligation in Scotland to protect against harm by windfarm development and to development compensatory measures, of which MPAs are considered to be one solution.
“We would certainly not welcome the imposition of a mirror of the English/Welsh situation, that is the imposition of MPAs. But I do think the Scottish government is looking at what options might be available.
“The MPAs that we currently have in Scotland were determined by the Scottish government but, beyond 12nm, the UK government would become involved procedurally, though not policy-making, as I understand.
“Where it gets complicated is that energy is reserved to London. But marine planning and conservation are devolved, and the consenting of offshore wind in Scottish waters is the responsibility of Holyrood.”
She pointed out that the still-fresh-out-of-the-box NESO (National Energy System Operator) has been tasked by the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments to develop a strategic energy spatial plan for the UK, on and offshore. That’s very much a work-in-progress.
“They consulted on a methodology as to how they’re going to do that at the tail-end of last year. So, whilst they’ve clearly devolved responsibility in decision-making and consenting, I get the sense that, at GB level, the three administrations are working a bit more closely together on how one actually plans the future energy network,” the SFF boss added.
But it’s clearly a rocky road.
It also emerged a few weeks ago that an offshore wind-related briefing note prepared last year by an official at Holyrood for First Minister John Swinney to use when speaking with fishermen was inflammatory towards the fishing industry.
© Supplied by Jason Hedges / DCTAccording to trade paper Fishing News, the FM was advised ahead of a visit to Shetland last year in a briefing marked ‘Official – Sensitive’ that the fishing industry ‘are liable to outline concerns in relation to their perception of increasing pressure on use of the marine space – in particular, pressure arising from the network of Marine Protected Areas, the expansion of offshore wind development, and increasingly litigious/active eNGOs’.
Fishing News said the document (plus others) came to light via a Freedom of Information request to the Scottish government that asked for all correspondence between SNP MP Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) and Scottish ministers or special advisors between October 3, 2024 and the date of the request.
Critically, the core subject was spatial squeeze and the Scottish government did not share the same views as the SFF.
Macdonald repeated what she said to the trade paper: “The spatial squeeze is not an imaginary concept dreamed up by fishermen, but a real and active force that a report carried out for the SFF has shown will exclude the trawling fleet from 50% of fishing grounds by 2050.
“It is time the Scottish government woke up and realised that people’s jobs and the future of our coastal communities really matter, and are not just talking points in political games.”
Meanwhile, south of the border and also in March, the NFFO hosted a meeting at Westminster for MPs, members of the House of Lords, fish producer organisations and active fishermen.
NFFO CEO Mike Cohen warned his guests: “We can’t eat turbines,” he remarked, advocating a balanced approach that does not trade off the interests of fishermen without full consideration of the consequences.
“If a fishing ground is taken away for a wind farm or a conservation area, we need to ensure that the decision is truly worth the trade-off.”
