The ACA was established in 1948 to protect the lakes and rivers of the United Kingdom from pollution. Funds donated from a wide range of interested anglers, clubs and federations, and raised by the ACA itself, are effectively pooled so that no one person has to foot the costs of bringing polluters to court. The ACA legal team also offers advice to its member clubs and riparian owners about a wide range of angling and related law, completely free of charge.

The ACA's team of in-house litigation solicitors represents the ACA's member clubs and riparian owners in seeking compensation from offenders who cause pollution or other damage to rivers and still waters. It can also obtain injunctions to prevent activities which threaten to damage these environments - if broken, offenders can find themselves in contempt of court and can be jailed.

The ACA does all this by using the common law. While the Environment Agency and other enforcement bodies use the criminal law to prosecute polluters, the fines are paid to the Treasury and are often too small to make an impact on the profits of big companies. Using the common law the ACA can seek compensation for the person or angling club for the damage caused by the pollution. Whilst criminal cases must be proved 'beyond all reasonable doubt' (i.e. 99% certain), civil cases under common law need only be proved 'on balance of probabilities' (i.e. 51% certain). This means that the ACA is much more likely to win its cases and when it does, all of the money goes back to improving the affected river.

Over the years, the ACA has taken on many thousands of cases against polluters and those who damage fisheries, recovering millions of pounds in damages. Not only is the club or riparian owner compensated, but there is also a wider public benefit from tackling pollution head-on. We have more cases ongoing at the moment than at any time in our history, as well as offering more routine legal advice to hundreds of angling clubs and owners across the country.

The ACA's most notable early achievement was an action against three defendants in the case of The Pride of Derby Angling Association v British Celanese and others. In 1952, after 17 days in the High Court and 6 days in the Court of Appeal, damages were awarded against all three defendants. The City Corporation was forced to spend £1.8 million (the equivalent of £30 million today) on new sewage treatment works. Likewise, the electricity authority had to spend £180,000 (the equivalent of £3 million today) on improving its cooling apparatus.

The ACA's legal team has teeth and bites hard. In the face of an ACA challenge, many cases have been settled quickly even before the issue of proceedings. The ACA uses expert methods to calculate damages payable and these have been accepted by insurance companies, loss adjusters, solicitors and judges.

In addition, we employ environmental economists and fisheries surveyors to verify and quantify financial losses to our members. We also employ leading fisheries biologists and experts to advise on the effect of pollution on fish and other wildlife. All this can mean that the cost to us of taking an individual case on behalf of our members can be as much as £30,000. Our legal team has built up an enviable reputation for its resolve. We have taken many controversial issues to the courts and taken risks to ensure that polluters are called to account. The ACA has achieved many changes in environmental legislation and is constantly pushing at the boundaries of the common law to improve the protection it offers to rivers, lakes, streams and ponds.

The ACA is unique in that not only do ACA club or riparian owner members not pay a penny for legal representation when the ACA takes court action on their behalf, but the member also gets to keep all the damages to pay for protection and improvement of the affected fishery. No other organisation works in this way.

Some Further Examples of the Successful Work of the ACA

• In the 1980s, the ACA began the first private prosecution of a water authority bringing to the public's attention the combination of the poacher/gamekeeper role under the pre-privatisation days of the water industry where water authorities regulated themselves.

• In the early 1990s, the ACA initiated a private prosecution under the Water Resources Act 1991 against British Coal for pollution from abandoned mines, specifically the River Rhymney in Glamorgan, an issue the then National Rivers Authority had avoided.

• In 1999, the ACA embarked upon a ground-breaking mediation to break the deadlock in litigation arising from pollution in 1994 of the River Eden in Cumbria. The £415,000 we recovered resulted in the establishment of the Eden Rivers Trust who have used that money to protect and improve that river and to bring in more money from European and charitable sources.

• The ACA is currently tackling other forms of damage caused to fisheries, such as the increasing problem of escapee rainbow trout from trout farms, diffuse agricultural pollution and over-abstraction of water. The ACA is also examining how to quantify a damages claim after invertebrate kills occur. While it is obvious to anglers that this kind of damage will ultimately affect the fish, proving this to the satisfaction of the Courts has never been easy.

ACA Advice Line

The ACA has in the past few years expanded its role into offering a general legal helpline to member clubs and riparian owners on all aspects of fishery law and fisheries in general. This list is by no means exhaustive, but the advice service covers areas such as:

Setting up a fishery
Ownership of stocks
Advising on leases
Whether or not to incorporate angling
clubs
Insurance
Abstraction licences
Discharge consents
Navigation
Public liability and rights of way
Bailiffing and poaching
Land drainage
Fish passes
Club rules

The ACA also lobbies hard on behalf of members in other areas such as water resources management and takes any opportunity to respond to consultation and debate on the aquatic environment, such as the Water Framework Directive.

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The rules for the Anglers' Conservation Association Click here to download pdf