Visitors to North East beaches are coming across a strange sight. Along the shoreline from Hartlepool down to Redcar’s South Gare, gangs of shellfish pickers scavenge the sands at low tide for mussels, cockles, kelp and undersized crabs.
Ignoring protests from the public, the gangs pile their finds buckets into their cars and drive off.
The locals are concerned about the loss of a vital food source for sea birds.
The North Eastern Inshore Fisheries Authority (NEIFCA) tells North East Bylines that they are well aware of the picker gangs, who mostly operate without permits. The activity began during Covid and has spread around the British coastline.
Redcar with its extensive beaches is the local picking flashpoint.
The authority is fighting an ongoing battle to safeguard food security for sea birds. The Tees Estuary is home to the Teesmouth and Cleveland Special Protection Area/RAMSAR under the European Birds Directive.
The NEIFCA is also concerned about the introduction of unlicensed, contaminated seafood into the human food chain. The agency has found a link between the picker gangs and Chinese takeaways in Leeds and West Yorkshire.
The Food Safety Officers we spoke to at Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and
Hartlepool councils have not found sales of the unpermitted seafood in their respective towns.
The NEIFCA covers the coast and inshore waters from Newcastle down to Lincolnshire. They have just 12 staff and four enforcement officers. They try to intercept the gangs during the spring tides when the tide is furthest out.
The agency has issued the gangs with sanctions and warnings, but prosecutions are rare.
Permits for gathering crustaceans are issued by NEIFCA. There are two types of permit: one for hobby picking and the other for commercial use.
There are no picking limits for cockles and mussels. But nowhere on the North East coast is designated as having the water quality suitable for harvesting edible bivalves, ie cockles and mussels.
The rules on crab picking vary with the species.
The NEIFCA are hoping to extend the list of species requiring a permit with new regulations to be signed off by Defra.
The agency works with Border Control who handle immigration matters; The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (for labour exploitation); and local authority food safety teams.
The gangs are mostly made up of UK resident Chinese nationals. According to NEIFCA, they claim they are just families on a day out and that the children working with them are their own offspring.
The NEIFCA Chief Officer David McCandless tells us he suspects that the pickers are organised somehow.
The National Crime Agency inform us they are not investigating the possibility of organised crime involvement, slavery or child abuse. They are leaving the action to the local officers and councils.
In February 2004, 20 Chinese cockle pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay. They were trafficked slaves coerced by the Chinese Snakehead gang.
What you can do
- 1. If you are the witness, please email the NEIFCA with a report: ne-ifca@eastriding.gov.uk
- 2. Try to get the vehicle registration numbers of their cars and send them to the NEIFCA
- 3. Do not approach them.
