The government has been urged to halt dredging activity on the river Tees immediately as fishermen launch a legal bid to protect local sea life.

Solicitors Leigh Day have sent a pre-action letter to the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) urging them to take immediate action to prevent further irreparable harm to the fishing industry.

The law firm is acting on behalf of Hartlepool fisherman Stan Rennie, who has worked in the town his whole life and is a champion of sustainability and protecting the North East coastline. However, he believes an “extinction episode” is happening in the North Sea and says the region has been forgotten by the Government.

A mass die-off saw huge numbers of crustaceans wash up on Teesside’s shores last October, with locals reporting similar incidents ever since. Half of the Hartlepool fishing fleet are now out of business and the industry has subsequently been hit by job losses.

The Northern Echo: A mass die-off saw huge numbers of crustaceans wash up on Teesside’s shores last October, with locals reporting similar incidents ever since. A mass die-off saw huge numbers of crustaceans wash up on Teesside’s shores last October, with locals reporting similar incidents ever since. (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT)

DEFRA says it is due to an algal bloom, but some academics believe the cause to be dredging that’s unearthed pyridine. That ruling is now being assessed by an independent expert panel.

PD Ports, the authority managing the river Tees, says it carries out maintenance dredging all year round but is not to blame. The authority is believed to permit the disposal of 243,842 tonnes of dredged material from the Tees and 42,128 from Hartlepool at Tees Bay per year. It has also received permission to dispose dredged material while constructing a new quay at the South Bank in the Tees estuary.

Last month the DEFRA parliamentary committee wrote to ministers with a series of recommendations including reviews of dredging activity, reviews of licence conditions, the ‘minimising’ of dredging until investigations are complete, and new dredging assessments.

But the British Ports Association says certain conclusions reached in the paper are not "credible or even reflective of the results found by the researcher", and that dredging should not be halted.

Read next: 

In its letter to the MMO, Leigh Jones says fishermen are concerned that apparent breaches of dredging licences have been observed and reported but no action appears to have been taken.

It adds that “further dredging activity risks causing further irreparable harm” and urged the MMO to respond within five days. However, that deadline has passed and the MMO has not responded.

A spokeswoman for the public body told The Northern Echo: “The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) received a pre-action protocol letter from Leigh Day Solicitors, dated 16 December 2022. We are considering the contents and will respond in due course.”