A small flotilla of gaily coloured fishing boats line the shingle beach at Hastings, East Sussex. Behind them are the bulldozers that shunt them into the waves and beyond, in neat rows, are black wooden fishermen’s huts and fish stalls, where on a good day teenage daughters, wives and retired skippers sell some of the day’s catch.

This is the Stade, a Saxon word for “landing place” from where wooden boats have set off since before William the Conqueror arrived in 1066.

But a decline in Britain’s fishing industry has hit many coastal communities hard. Hastings, home to one of the UK’s oldest fleets and the largest beach-launched fleet in Europe, is one of the worst hit. The fleet, which had 53 registered boats in 2015, has 18 today, a drop of 66%. Of them, most lie idle, the fishers say.

“Fishing has nosedived here,” says Peter White, 67, who has fished since he left school at 15. “A lot of people have left. From here all the way up the eastern channel as far as Whitstable. Harbours are empty, boats are gone. Fishing is on the floor. These boats haven’t been at sea for a month.”

No one is at sea today, due to westerly winds, which worsen the further out you go, he says, and even on a good day, there’s less than eight active.

These small “under 10” metre boats are the backbone of the UK industry; they represent 79% of the fleet and reportedly provide half of catch-related jobs. But in England between 2008 and 2022, they declined in numbers by 22%, nearly double the 13% fall in larger boats, according to research by Newcastle University and the University of Plymouth published this year. Over the same period, vessels under 10 metres also spent 43% less days at sea.

The fishers in Hastings who spoke to the Guardian blamed multiple factors for the decline, including marine heatwaves affecting fish populations, unsustainable quotas that dictate what and how much they can fish and larger trawlers further out in the North Sea “hammering” fish stocks.

In White’s family, fishing goes back a century. But neither of his two daughters fish, and with most on the Stade in their sixties, he fears he is one of Hasting’s last fishers.

“It’s going to die out,” says White. “Fish shops are disappearing right left and centre.”

He is semi-retired, but still fishes with his nephew, Darren, 49, on his boat, the RX56, the Sussex Girl. He loves being at sea more than he ever did. “I have a pension and no mortgage to pay, so there is no pressure,” he says. “Most fishermen don’t do it for the money, they do it for the life.”

The Hastings Fishermen’s Protection Society, set up in 1831 to preserve the fishing community’s right to work from the beach, has helped train 10 young people over the past decade. All except one have left for better-paying jobs elsewhere.

Shane Ball, 32, whose father is a fisher, left reluctantly in November for a job as a painter. “All I ever wanted to do was fish,” he says. “I skippered for 12 years.

“But it came time to get a mortgage. When you go out to sea, you have to pay the fuel and the crew. Sometimes, you are literally burning the diesel for nothing.”

  • Shane Ball out at sea on a 12-hour fishing trip with his father, Robert ‘Podgy’ Ball, on their boat, the Bethan Louise, in 2017

The cost of fuel has rocketed, as have other costs after health and safety rules imposed on the small boats by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in 2023.

In May, the struggling sector was dealt a further blow after a “Brexit reset” deal between the European Union and the UK. Fishers condemned the deal as a “betrayal” because it granted large EU vessels 12 years of access to UK territorial waters, right up to where the small boats fish at six miles from the coast, a year before the existing deal was due to expire. Alongside the deal, the government announced a £360m fund to modernise the fleet, boost exports and support communities.

Mark Ball, 62, who fishes with his son Jamie, 30, the youngest of the Hastings crew, says earning have plummeted in the past decade. “The only way we can maintain the boat now is if we take it out of savings.”

Mike Cohen, the CEO of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, says the Brexit reset deal “was a big blow” that surrendered the best prospect fishing communities had to grow.

“You’ve got our little boats fishing alongside 30m-plus Spanish, French, Portuguese boats and Dutch and Danish in some places too, that can stay at sea in all weathers, fish around the clock and stay at sea for a week or fortnight in weather that our boats can’t get out from port. They can’t compete.

“We gave away access to waters and we got absolutely nothing back.”

Cohen has called for a national strategy for fishing and marine food production, and to deploy the £360m fishing and coastal growth fund where needed.

  • Joe Lee’s boat, the Maria Louise, being launched from the Stade in 2021. Fishers say small boats cannot compete with larger EU trawlers that can stay out far longer and in worse weather

Last week, scientists from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, advised a 77% reduction in fishing of North East Atlantic mackerel to prevent population collapse. Conservationists point to a lack of a unified management plan between countries to prevent overfishing. Catch limits between EU countries and the UK in the region have consistently exceeded limits recommended by scientists.

Rob Pearson, chief fisheries and conservation officer for the Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, argues that good inshore management is one of the reasons England has one of the largest smallscale fleets in Europe, but it is undermined by what is happening farther offshore. The changes in health and safety rules have also had a “massive impact” on recruitment, he says.

“The pathway to becoming an inshore fisherman was already a struggle. It’s harder to take a crew because of the safety requirements.”

Back in Hastings, Lucy Phillips, 55, and skipper Paul Stanley, 59, are sorting nets on the deck of the RX11, Christine, on the Stade. Phillips, who worked as a translator before taking up fishing four years ago, says: “It makes me sad it’s declining.

“We don’t want to become a toy town, where people leave the boats and it looks like a museum,” she says.

  • Paul Stanley, the skipper, and his partner, Lucy Phillips, with their boat, Christine

In the old days, the Stade was “like a big family”, says Kevin Bollen, 64. “Everyone knew everyone else. As kids we used to go and pull the boats off the beach. They would give us a few fish and we went round the houses selling them. When you got to my age, you would be the ‘boy ashore’, help bring the boat in and get a quarter of a share.

“This used to be one of the richest fishing grounds in the UK. Now, you’d be really pushing yourself to take £15,000 a year.”

Bollen sold his boat after a cancer diagnosis more than a decade ago. “Another 10 years, I don’t think there will be boats out.”

Asked what will happen to the Stade when the last fisher leaves, Bollen replies: “It’ll be turned into a car park, won’t it?”

  • Kevin Bollen, right, with the skipper and boat owner, Darren Coglan, in the latter’s shed