Prepared by Dr Bruno Broughton B.Sc. (Hons), Ph.D., F.I.F.M.

Economic Benefits of Angling

• In the document published in 1991 by the Sports Council (‘Angling – An Independent Review’), the annual spend by anglers in the UK was calculated at £1.2 billion (£1,200,000,000), excluding VAT (see page 9). I did this research and believe it to be quite reliable, based as it was on 1989 socio-economic research using a representative base of about 1,200 anglers.
• The 1994 research commissioned by the NRA (‘National Angling Survey 1994 – Fisheries Technical Report No.5’) concluded that there were 2.9 million freshwater and sea anglers in England & Wales. (If you add Scotland & Northern Ireland, I guess that the UK figure rises to about 3.5+ million.)
• In the same study, NOP estimated that coarse and game anglers in England & Wales spent £3.3 billion (£3,300,000,000) per annum. Clearly, the figure would have been higher had it encompassed Scotland & N.I., as well as sea anglers. (I think that this figure was far too large then; the real figure nowadays is nearer to £2-3 billion.).
• In its ‘Charter for Angling’, the Labour Party estimated that the spend on angling was £5billion, but I don’t know the source of this nor whether it related to the whole of the UK.
• The best figures I have seen recently on retail spend were those prepared by two members of ‘the trade’, separately! Rounded up, they suggest that, at retail prices, the tackle trade is worth about £325million, the bait trade a further £35 million, and magazine & books about £20 million.
• Some of this information is repeated in the recent ‘Salmon & Freshwater Fisheries Review’. There is a useful section on pages 75-77 which is worth reading.

Employment

• To the best of my knowledge there are no reliable data and no recent research into the number of jobs and job equivalents provided by angling.
• My calculations suggest that direct employment by manufacturers, retailers, bait companies & independents is probably 5,000-6,000.
• To this figure must be added employment in the angling media, the EA and other equivalent organisations, fish suppliers & other management personnel, and fishery owners, managers & agents. My guess is this employment would raise the grand total for the UK to 12,000-15,000 or thereabouts.
• If we include job equivalents, a revised figure could climb to 20,000 and may reach the 26,000 figure I have seen quoted elsewhere (with no source attributed to it).