1 week Ago By The Telegraph
Scarborough Harbour is positively sparkling in the spring sunshine . Fishing boats line the quayside, where stacks of lobster pots represent what has become the main catch for generations of local fishing families. But while it appears idyllic, this is hard work with small margins.
And it’s about to get even harder. Late last month, the Government published its marine decarbonisation strategy ; effectively a net zero deadline for boats. Under the plans, boat owners could eventually be forced to swap diesel engines, petrol generators and wood-fired stoves for electric motors and batteries.
New vessels will be required to be entirely electric, while there will also be tax hikes on marine fuel. Despite Government reassurances that those with smaller boats will not be forced to make changes imminently, many are incensed by the proposals, including lobster fisherman Paul Fishburn, who warns they may be the final nail in the coffin for his ailing industry . “You’d first be talking about ripping engines out and replacing them so they could run on cleaner fuels – and biofuel-powered engines are already more expensive to maintain,” he says.
“And then, what, retrofitting boats to run on electric batteries, or buying new electric ones? It would cost a fortune. “Basically, it feels to us that they just want to drive this industry out. It’s like they want us to fail.
” At the moment, Fishburn says, each trip out to his lobster pots just off the North Sea coast costs him about £25 in red diesel – the lower-taxed agricultural gas oil. Labour’s plans appear to take aim at the eight million tons of carbon dioxide emitted by the maritime sector each year – of which red diesel is a large contributor. But when the strategy itself states that only 5 per cent of those emissions can be attributed to fishing boats, it’s no surprise fishermen feel they could be disproportionately targeted.
Maritime bosses have meanwhile dismissed the decarbonisation strategy as “completely and utterly impractical”. Safety concerns Bob Roberts’s lobster boat is unloading its latest catch to the wholesale warehouses on Scarborough’s East Pier. Like Fishburn, his family have been inextricably linked with this place for years.
He’s certain that trying to meet the environmental standards set out by Labour’s strategy would crush the industry for good. “I’ve got a decent engine in my boat, and it’s relatively new,” he says. “So why should I need to replace that when our emissions are so negligible? I mean, they should be looking at cruise ships – they’re using a fantastic amount of diesel.
” It’s not just the potential cost of using new fuels or needing new engines that fishermen are concerned about. The natural end point to decarbonisation is electric boats – and no one is convinced by the safety or the usability of that technology either. This, after all, is a perilous job on open seas, even in the very best of conditions.
Having confidence in the ability to steer your craft to calmer waters, should that be required, is paramount. “OK, a very small EV boat doing a short journey might be all right,” says Fishburn. “But as soon as a boat of any kind of size comes under more load because of bad weather, they’ll just run out of battery after a few days and need to be rescued – unless they have a big diesel generator to charge it.
“In which case, why not just have the diesel power in the first place? It’s ridiculous, particularly as electricity and salt water are a very dangerous combination to start with. We’ve seen fires on electric ferries .” One of the policies running alongside the decarbonisation strategy – published on March 25, the day before Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement – is further action to reduce emissions at berth.
It makes sense: just as you don’t want diesel buses idling in town centres, so it follows that boats shouldn’t be ticking over in harbours. “Yes, I get that,” agrees Roberts. “But look here now, and listen.
There’s not one boat idling, is there? And you don’t want to be idling either; you want to land your gear as soon as possible and go home. So it’s not even an issue in the first place.” It’s this apparent lack of understanding from ministers of what the industry actually does – and needs – that concerns fishermen not just in Scarborough but around our coastlines the most.
Roberts is far from convinced that help to decarbonise would be forthcoming, and yet he is not a net zero naysayer. Indeed, he actually sees the drive to clean energy as being crucial to the fortunes of this harbour, given its proximity to what will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm at Dogger Bank. “We told the council years ago that a boat hoist in the harbour was essential,” he says, citing a piece of infrastructure that could lift a craft out of the water in order for it to be worked on.
“You could then have made a real case for this to be a working port where the maritime industry could continue – by servicing the boats going out to the turbines. It makes perfect sense.” Indeed, the funds and grants are ready to be used, but the hoist has been hindered in a process to redevelop part of the harbour, deferred by senior planners in January.
It’s another reason why fishermen here fear their days could be numbered. “This, going back centuries, has always been a harbour of opportunity,” says Roberts. “We have another one now.
We need to seize it.” ‘Prohibitively expensive and grossly impractical’ The Government’s own statistics show that there’s been a 54 per cent reduction in UK registered fishing vessels since 1993, with a similar halving in jobs, from around 20,000 in the mid-1990s to roughly 11,000 today. In Scarborough, the industry’s decline can be seen in the pontoons lined with scores of pleasure craft, where fishing boats would once have been docked.
Even though these part-time sailors’ livelihoods aren’t at stake, many have sympathy with the workers they now share the harbour with, not least because a decarbonisation strategy could also fundamentally alter how they power their craft, too. Gary Walker is readying the yacht he shares with friends Mike Atkinson and Ralph Pickard for their next trip. If it feels like a never-ending, expensive job, that’s because it is – and the prospect of having to retrofit their pride and joy to meet any environmental standards is not an appetising one.
“We have sails, but we need diesel to get in and out of the harbour,” says Walker. “There are times, too, where the weather conditions mean we have to motor.” “We would never be able to get enough energy onto a sailing boat, which needs to be light, with heavy electric batteries ,” adds Atkinson.
“And to retrofit one on this boat anyway would be prohibitively expensive and grossly impractical.” Prohibitively expensive and grossly impractical just about sums up how everyone feels about the maritime decarbonisation strategy in Scarborough. “I’d just like to ask the people who came up with this strategy if they really know what the impact will be on places like this,” says Nick Gough, who runs fishing trips from his small motorboat in the harbour.
The Government’s strategy acknowledges that the need to “reduce emissions from the whole fleet over time will be challenging for some sub sectors such as fishing vessels”. But a spokesman for the Department for Transport says: “Smaller vessels, such as fishing boats, will not face any immediate measures like emissions pricing or fuel regulations, as our focus is currently on larger ships. “We are committed to understanding the unique challenges faced by smaller vessels, and exploring how we can support them in reducing emissions over the long term,” the spokesman adds.
“That’s why we are gathering evidence through our ‘call for evidence’, which plays a key part in shaping any potential measures that may be considered.” This call for evidence closes on July 25 this year, but the strategy itself sets out a target of 30 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, and an 80 per cent reduction by 2040, before net zero in 2050. Back on the quayside, fishermen aren’t convinced they will be listened to, come what may.
“They’ll just tell you to do all these stupid things,” says Fishburn. “And meanwhile, we’ll be pushed out of here altogether.”.
