Council ordered to pay £90k after fishing club legal battle

Caerphilly County Borough Council has been ordered to pay around £90,000 to a fishing club after it lost a long-running legal battle.

Contractors for the council drained the lake at Parc Cwm Darran, in Deri, in April 2013 to carry out maintenance work.

However, they failed to tell the Rhymney Valley and District Angling Society beforehand.

Much of the fish stock that the club had placed in the lake had either been washed into the Rhymney River or died from suffocation.

The club originally asked the council for £10,000 to replenish the stock to a sustainable level. However the council was only prepared to offer a maximum of £6,500.

During discussions it was insistent the depth of the lake had not gone below two metres and that there was enough water left in the lake for the fish.

The club argued the depth had only ever been 1.4 metres to begin with and that the council had drained the lake to a maximum depth of 1.2m.

The issue resulted in a protracted court case which has now been won by the club.

A county court judge in Cardiff ruled the council was responsible and ordered it to pay damages in the region of £30,000.

It has also been ordered to pay Rhymney Valley and District Angling Society’s legal costs, which is around £60,000.

The club’s secretary Jesse Pugh told Caerphilly Observer: “It was simply a matter of somebody measuring the depth of the water. If we could have got together in May or June 2013 and checked the depth that would have been fine, but the council’s engineering department insisted it was two metres.
“It was bureaucracy and bloody-mindedness.”

Mr Pugh, a former local authority worker, added: “This will ensure the club is on a firm financial footing forever, I would assume, but I am gutted that it is going to cost me for however long I live in council tax. How can they justify throwing this amount of money away?”

Blackwood councillor Nigel Dix, who found out the full extent of the council’s legal cost liability, said: “Caerphilly Council need to start working with people rather than against them. In the long-run, this issue has cost taxpayers £90,000 which could have been invested into services.”

Caerphilly County Borough Council has been contacted for comment.