Whitby regularly hauls in a massive, capacity-busting catch with little effort, no loss of days at sea and zero fuel outlay. A calm sea and sunny weather on an August Saturday meant the haul of tourists jammed cobbled Church Street whose cod-end narrows at the start of the 199 stone steps which lead up to the Abbey, founded in 657.
Industrial fishing is well down. Boat owners are diversifying into day angling and trips around the bay on party boats - including a galleon.
Local trawler skippers say they are not landing much North Sea catch here as it is five and half hours steaming to grounds from Whitby (costly fuel and days at sea lost) but only one hour from North Shields.
The roadside public fish slab shop at Whitby’s long auction hall no longer opens regularly. WF was welcomed by auctioneer Darren Butcher for the 7.30 morning auction. He had warned it would be only five minutes for a handful of part-filled boxes of sea trout and salmon landed the night before. He would love more, and has seen various hands take over the declining auction in the last decade. The latest rescue is by a Scarborough fish merchant. The newish shellfish holding store has also had to change hands on economic grounds.
There are few restaurants offering pukka gourmet cuisine. Fish in batter with chips dominate Whitby seafood “cuisine” alongside factory-breaded squid rings and scampi. It is the Whitby fishermen who lose out compared with local sales to hundreds of seafood restaurants on the opposite coasts of Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
It needs more imaginative chefs who want to exploit genuine Whitby catch (and mixed discards), such as young Andrew Nightingale. After scoring a big hit with his seafood-of-the day platter elsewhere, he wanted to lower the price to triple daily sales but other views prevailed so he took his dream to The Resolution hotel and pub.
Local, small “cobble” powered sailboats can suit this market, but they are not licensed to catch sea salmon or trout. The trawler skippers also get regular income from offshore rig and windfarm guard and safety work, but can’t fish simultaneously, so another local sale disappears.
Revenue streams
Overcharging tourists anywhere can backfire - they report back to “net” friends. Some in business here think the focus should be on creating “proper jobs” not seasonal casual work which does not help young people get on the expensive housing ladder.
The history card is played alongside sea-jet jewellery and fossil shops[1]. There is the Cook Memorial Museum and the Abbey ruins, where Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s coffin landed. In a town of 14,000 the Abbey had a reported 117,289 entries in 2010. Ghost and Dracula tours, festivals for Goths, musicians, beer drinkers and the annual regatta do well for the pubs.
Any “tourist” port should mobilise empty industrial space for parking revenues. Whitby has more than 2,000 paying spaces. Add in fines, and this is lucrative business if you can keep control of the money.
Prominent locals complain in the press of a ‘siege mentality’ in the tiers of bureaucracy. For Whitby is not quite its own master, coming under Scarborough Borough Council (SBC) half an hour away, with highways and parking under another tier of the North Yorkshire County Council.
Whitby, in return, has had money for river bank stabilisation and a new marina visitor facility block and moorings. Slated at £1,300,000 from SBC, £804,733 central government regional funds and £217,000 from Brussels (the ERDF), business premises in the original plans were overthrown by Whitby locals and final funding renegotiated.
The volunteer-run North Yorkshire Moors steam train does brisk business to Goathland, (Aidensfield in Heartbeat, a 30-year long, TV series set in the 1960s). Its TV-bobbies regularly forayed into Whitby chasing spivs and smugglers around the harbour under the beady eye of Whitby seagulls atop Cook’s cliff-top statue near a whalebone arch.
Young people say they have to flit between casual work, morning noon and night to survive. Locals complain about the highest petrol charges in the region and no competition. Food prices were eye-watering at the dominant Co-op supermarket, and locals hope a proposed supermarket will bring them down.
The small boats (there is an annual 10-day Whitby Summer Fishing Festival) are doing well and one mother and delighted son will return after catching plentiful mackerel. Hour-wise their half-day trip was cheaper than Abbey ruin tickets. One ex-trawler skipper said anglers are catching plenty of big cod. His son plans taking skipper exams but said he was not happy at paying some ₤500 training costs[2].
New horizons
WF&A was introduced by Anne Hornigold to some very pleased teenage fishing apprentices under the industry entry scheme run by Whitby and District Fishing Industry Training School. Its Chief Executive, her apprentices get sea modules with skippers out of several ports and maybe a permanent job. The teenagers are billeted with local families so they don’t get homesick. Anne and engineer husband Tony hope there will be new work opportunities from the potential 2,600-turbine, 13GW windfarm on Dogger Bank[3].
Deputy Harbourmaster Doug Shannon (master too of SBC’s main channel dredger and his colleague Lesley say they can comfortably manage more than 300 vessels of all kinds (moored double or more). Sailing Ship Lord Nelson was on view in port and visitor slots were nearly 100% full.
SBC’s figures show pontoon moorings (Scarborough 71, Whitby 229) produced £889,467 in 2010/2011. Average annual spend by a Whitby marina-based boat owner has been estimated at more than £3,500.
Successful Parkol Marine has a waiting list for trawler builds. This town built Cook’s ships - Endeavour, Adventure, Discovery and Resolution. Tony Hornigold said, everyone needs to pull together so the seafaring community of Whitby does not limit its horizons to the coast between Scarborough and Robin Hood’s Bay.
[1] http://www.thewhitbyseagull.co.uk/geology_of_whitby_history_pg01.html
