The harvesting of oysters on the mudflats of the Thames estuary has helped transform Whitstable, the quaint seaside town on the north-east Kent coast, from a neglected backwater into a foodie mecca.
At weekends its narrow pavements are packed with day trippers beating a path to one of its many shellfish shacks or restaurants where half a dozen freshly shucked native oysters, the local, highly prized, wild variety, will set you back £15.
But trouble is brewing in the town they call Oysteropolis, with some residents questioning whether the cultivation of the mollusc has gone too far.
A public inquiry, scheduled to begin next month, will consider whether the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company [WOFC] has breached planning permission by erecting thousands of metal trestle tables off the beach in order to farm non-native Pacific rock oysters which cannot reproduce.
“The only time we had anything comparable to this was the beach defences along the coast in the second world war,” said Ashley Clark, a local councillor and vocal critic of the farm.
Initially, Canterbury city council, which oversees Whistable, took the view that the trestle tables did not need planning permission because they were not permanent structures. But, as their numbers grew, from a few hundred to more than 3,500, and locals raised fears over the danger they presented to swimmers, dinghies and windsurfers, the council served an enforcement notice.
“Locally, there’s been uproar over it,” Clark said. “For years people have canoed and sailed and swam out there and now all of this has been curtailed by an activity which is totally alien to Whitstable because, originally, the native oysters were dredged offshore a mile or two miles out. This is entirely novel, using an alien species for commercial purposes.”
What at first glance might seem a minor bureaucratic row has raised a multitude of questions about the relationship between food, geography and technology.
James Green, development manager at the WOFC, believes farming the sea is essential for future food security. “We’re on an island and we’re restricted in the amount of land we’ve got,” Green said. “Aquaculture is one of the few sustainable ways of producing food.”
Green’s father, Barrie, assumed full ownership of the fishery in the late 1970s, when Whitstable was on its uppers. Back then the company had one employee and was barely functioning. A century earlier the town had been producing 100 million oysters a year. High in protein, they were considered working-class fare.
As Dickens observes via Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers, “poverty and oysters always seem to go together”.
But the importation of diseases and over-fishing took their toll on the native oyster stocks and the town’s fortunes dwindled.
The company’s cultivation of Pacific rock oysters, beginning in 2008, saw oyster harvesting return on an industrial scale. This year WOFC will expect to harvest around three million rock oysters from its trestles, which lie barely 50 metres offshore.
Green, a marine biologist by training, whose family owns a string of restaurants, cafes and properties in the town, is a passionate defender of the farm, which is heavily subsidised by his other business interests, and its importance to the town.
“You talk to people about Whitstable and the one thing they associate with it is oysters. If I could farm native oysters in the traditional manner I would do it, but you can’t. It’s impossible. To do it in a commercial way you have to use modern methods. Native species don’t lend themselves to commercial farming.”
Complicating matters, ancient rights give WOFC ownership of a considerable chunk of the town’s beach and its shoreline, limiting the council’s jurisdiction.
It is an unusual state of affairs. Most of Britain’s coast is owned by the Crown, but the fact that much of Whitstable’s beachfront remains in private hands is a source of anguish to locals, who have brought a legal challenge in a bid for it to be given protected village green status. Similar challenges have been brought in the past, without success. Some locals have now gone as far as calling for parliament to nationalise the beach.
“A lot of this is about change, and people don’t like change,” said Green, who pointed out that an independent assessment had concluded that the farm was not a danger to boats. “If you looked at Whitstable when it produced 100 million oysters a year, the whole foreshore was taken up with oyster production. Whether you like it or not, the reason why people come to Whitstable is because it has that commercial nature. There’s a harbour with fishing boats, and an oyster industry. If you took that away, it would be disastrous, in my view. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that. I look at the oyster farm and think ‘well you can see it, you’ve restricted the ability to sail in that small part of the sea, but has it had a massive impact?’ No.
“We’re rekindling some of the industry that used to be there and adding something to that commercial nature in Whitstable that is so important.”
Others, however, disagree. Richard Maltby, principal of training at the Whitstable Yacht Club sailing school, points out that the first passenger railway service operated between Canterbury and Whitstable, bringing people to the coast for sea-bathing.
“There is a balance that’s always been special in Whitstable, but that’s being challenged by what’s going on,” he said. “We’re not anti-development, but he needs to understand other people use these waters.”