Guidance

Regional Fisheries Groups - South 7d

The region covers Dungeness to Swanage.

From:
Marine Management Organisation
Published
26 July 2022
Last updated
2 February 2026 — See all updates

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South RFG Meeting Records (video recordings, meeting notes)

Please see the South 7d meeting notes by following the below links. Meeting notes, recordings and other outputs from the last 24 months will be displayed here. If you require meeting notes prior to this, please contact the RFG team.

December 2025

August 2025

April 2025

September 2024

January 2024

Projects and Evidence documents

Cuttlefish Action Plan

Stakeholders can find the latest information, progress and updates on the Cuttlefish Fishery Action Plan on the GOV.UK guidance page Cuttlefish Fishery Action Plan and you can also sign up for email alerts from that page to stay up to date.

The newly published Cuttlefish Market Sampling Report is now available using the link above.

Poole Bay Gear Conflict

Following reports from Poole and Christchurch Bays from fishers, the RFG team are monitoring instances of gear conflict and have introduced a standardised reporting form for industry to use. You can access the reporting form for the 7d area here.

Dorset Police have shared that fishers can report instances of suspected criminal damage on the following online: Report a crime to Dorset Police.

You may be aware that the MMO brought in measures in Lyme Bay where an increasing dover sole quota caused an increase in competition for space, gear conflict, reduction in volume of sole catches, and the size of fish caught. The measures included the setting of separate catch limits for different gears to promote using more selective gear, introducing licence conditions requiring enhanced visibility and identification of passive gear, and committing to gathering more evidence on requested changes to minimum landing sizes, increases in mesh sizes and modifications of scallop dredges.

More information on Lyme Bay sole fishery management can be found on the Southwest RFG page here.

The RFG team are continually exploring ways to alleviate this issue in a structured and fair way and continue to feed this information into the review of the Lyme Bay sole fishery management measures review and impact evaluation framework.

Seal conflict

Across many of the Regional Fisheries Groups areas, we have heard of increased reports of depredation of fisheries catches as seal populations are increasing nationally.

The RFGs supported the University of Oxford researchers Dr Claire Tanner and Dr Katrina Davis by facilitating industry workshops in Spring 2024 in the Southeast and East of England, to feed into the next stages of their underway research. Their work was to review the success of mitigation technologies, including acoustic deterrents, to understand what has been most effective in different settings — and the attractiveness or practicality of these technologies for fishers.

The RFG team used these workshops to further note industry concerns, issues and ideas, which were passed onto both MMO evidence and relevant DEFRA teams for consideration.

MMO have previously commissioned two projects:

Defra are also considering the issue of entanglement of seals under Clean Catch which is developing and trialling bycatch monitoring and mitigation measures.

Information on the existing regulation for grey seals and common seals can be found here.

Permanent Uncapping of U10m Vessels with Licence Cap

Having first been raised through the South RFG, Defra went on to carry out a consultation in the summer of 2023, and permanently remove the U10m licence cap (350k of quota species per year) from 1st January 2025 to all the fishing industry the opportunity to fish the quota allocated for their use.  Ahead of the permanent removal of the licence cap, there had been quota leasing initiatives as well as periods of temporary uncapping.

MMO will continue to assess the uptake of quota within the u10m pool on an ongoing basis and impose catch limits on u10m licence holders if required.

You can find the full information on the consultation and government decision here.

Channel Fly Seining

Channel inshore fishers concern for the increased efficiency, capacity and activity of large flyseine vessels on the sustainability of the demersal non-quota species led to a DEFRA public consultation in the late summer of 2022. The responses and government response to this can be found here.

Ultimately this led to the introduction of new measures which came into force on 16th December 2024 - New fisheries management measures come into force today – Fisheries Management Plans.

This included the introduction of a minimum conservation reference size (MCRS) for lemon sole (25cm), turbot (30cm), and brill (30cm) in areas 7d and 7e. As well as technical measures on fly seining gear which includes a minimum mesh size of 100mm, and a restriction to engine power (221kw) in the English territorial waters of the Channel Sea (0-12nm).

The ongoing monitoring of this and consideration of further measures such as early adoption of Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM), time restrictions or seasonal closures, overall engine size limits, rope length or diameter restrictions, or permitting, will fall under the delivery of the Channel Demersal Non-Quota Stock for English waters FMP - Channel demersal non-quota species fisheries management plan (FMP) - GOV.UK.

Area contact list:

MMO

For further contact details, please visit Contact MMO - GOV.UK

MCA

IFCAs

Updates to this page

Published 26 July 2022
Last updated 2 February 2026 show all updates

  1. 02 February 2026 webpage update and 23 April 2025 meeting notes published.

  2. Cuttlefish Action Plan section added and an update to the Meeting Notes.

  3. RFG Meeting Notes South 7d 11.09.24 added.

  4. Cuttlefish Action Plan Workshop Channel Demersal NQS FMP - information sheet - added

  5. Update 21-03-24

  6. Catch limit decisions added

  7. Added landings presentation

  8. Meeting notes added

  9. 26 April 2023 update.

  10. Feb update

  11. successes

  12. Date update

  13. Meeting notes and presentation added from meeting held on 6 September 2022.

  14. First published.

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