The Thames Estuary Cockle Fishery (No. 2) (Variation) Order 2025

Made: 14th July 2025

Laid before Parliament: 15th July 2025

Coming into force: 5th August 2025

The Secretary of State, in exercise of the powers conferred by section 1 of, and Schedule 1 to, the Act, makes the following Order.

Citation, commencement and extent

1

This Order—

• (a) may be cited as the Thames Estuary Cockle Fishery (No. 2) (Variation) Order 2025;

• (b) comes into force on 5th August 2025; and

• (c) extends to England and Wales.

Variation of the Thames Estuary Cockle Fishery (No. 2) Order 2024

2

• (1) The Thames Estuary Cockle Fishery (No. 2) Order 2024 is varied as follows.

• (2) In article 5 (application for licences etc.), for paragraph (12) substitute—

(12) A person (“P”) is not eligible to be issued with a licence or to have a licence renewed under this article before 18th December 2031 if— (a) P, or a shareholder or officer of P, was on 30th January 2024 a shareholder or officer of a company (“C”); and (b) C has been issued with a transitional period licence under article 6.

Signed

Daniel Zeichner — Minister of State — Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs — 14th July 2025

Explanatory note

(This note is not part of the Order)

EXPLANATORY NOTE

This Order varies the Thames Estuary Cockle Fishery (No. 2) Order 2024 (“the 2024 Order”). The 2024 Order granted the Kent and Essex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority a right of regulating the cockle fishery over the estuary of the River Thames for a period of 28 years.

This Order varies the restriction in article 5(12) of the 2024 Order concerning eligibility for a licence to dredge, fish for or take cockles within the regulated fishery.

A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no significant impact on the private, voluntary or public sectors is foreseen.

Footnotes

[^f00001]: 1967 c. 83. Section 1 of the Act was amended by sections 202(1) to (3), and 203 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 (c. 23); section 15(1) and (2) of the Sea Fisheries Act 1968 (c. 77); section 1 of the Sea Fisheries (Shellfish) (Amendment) Act 1997 (c. 3); and section 9(1) of, and paragraph 15 of Schedule 2 to, the Fishery Limits Act 1976 (c. 86). The Act is to be read with section 15(3) to (5) of the Sea Fisheries Act 1968. Schedule 1 to the Act was amended by section 15(7) of the Sea Fisheries Act 1968. The relevant functions of the appropriate Minister, as defined in section 22(1) of the Act, were transferred to the Secretary of State by virtue of article 2(2) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Dissolution) Order 2002 (S.I. 2002/794).

[^f00002]: S.I. 2024/1211.