Closed area · Cornwall IFCA
Bottom-towed gear prohibited
Whitsand and Looe Bay Marine Conservation Zone (Fishing Restrictions) Byelaw 2018 · in force since 2019-02-04
A CAUGHT review has read the instrument behind this closure, rather than relying on the summary published with the boundary. Where the two differ, the instrument governs; this reading was made on 2026-11-10.
Byelaw paragraph 2: a person must not use bottom towed gear in the prohibited area. Paragraph 3: a person must not cause bottom towed gear, or any part of it, to be below the surface of the sea in the prohibited area. Paragraph 1(b): "bottom towed gear" means any mobile fishing gear used for taking sea fisheries resources which during a fishing operation is in connection with the seabed or other land and not fixed by any means to the seabed or other land. Year-round, no seasonal or vessel-size limb.
Rule reviewed against the instrument: the Cornwall IFCA Whitsand and Looe Bay MCZ (Fishing Restrictions) Byelaw 2018 bans the use of bottom towed gear, and having any part of it in the water, across the prohibited area, year-round. Bottom towed gear is defined as any mobile gear in contact with the seabed, so there is no demersal seine carve-out. The only exception is a written Authority permission for scientific, stocking or breeding purposes.
A person must not use bottom towed gear in the prohibited area.
Summary as published in the source dataset, shown for comparison. A dataset paraphrase can be narrower or wider than the instrument it summarises, and finding out which is the work above.
No cases have been recorded in this closure. That is not a finding that nothing happens here — it means our sweeps have not flagged anything inside these boundaries, and coverage depends on satellite passes and on vessels being tracked at all.
What a case here means. A CAUGHT case is a reason to look, not a verdict. Each one is judged on three independent factors — was it fishing, here and then; what gear does the vessel actually use; and what was prohibited there at that time — and the weakest of the three decides. Most cases are resolved.
Boundaries and rule summaries come from the published datasets named at the foot of this page and can contain errors; the legislation is the authority. If you believe this closure is described wrongly, tell us at contact@caught.org.uk.
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