Loss to fishing, tourism and community spirit

WITH regard to the article by Alexandra Wood (Yorkshire Post, August 31), I agree with your Editorial comment on the possibility of the picturesque and practical fishing cobles 
not being around much longer on the East Coast with Filey’s fishermen tiring of attempts to keep the beach usable as a launching site.

How sad that Scarborough Council cannot produce a 
licence to improve the beach 
with stone for six weeks, enabling the fishing cobles to slide into the sea.

Sad, also, that the RNLI cannot extend its community spirit by helping to wind up the fishing cobles, as their guidelines couldn’t allow them to help – unless the fishermen were in grave danger.

Surely the RNLI could increase their donations from onlookers who would crowd round to watch this old tradition?

What a loss to our fresh fishing industry, tourist industry – and community spirit.

As a child, staying with relatives at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Northumberland, a tractor would help to heave both cobles and lifeboat up the sloping sands.

This fishing village wouldn’t have been the same without the cobles’ fresh fish or lobster harvest sold by the quayside, or in the Cobb Inn.

While renting a shop in Seahouses, slightly higher up, the fishermen there who used cobles for fishing and trips to the Farne Islands were protesting about 
the changes to fishing rights in 2005.

Unfortunately, I do not know if anything improved for them.

I do know, however, that 
my deceased auntie, whose favourite charity was the 
RNLI, would have been upset at their failure to help the fishermen.