The last remaining jetties at the Racecourse Lough in Enniskillen are to be taken away, as are fishing stands and a wooden walkway on Laragh Lough in Bellanaleck. 

There are currently five wooden fishing stands on Racecourse Lough, but they are currently closed as they are in such bad condition they pose a safety risk. 

The Council had a long-standing arrangement with a local landowner regarding access to the lake, but this ran out in 2016. The landowner has since told the Council they won’t be renewing the agreement and that the remaining stands must be removed. This will cost the Council £7,000. 

In Bellanaleck, an access agreement with a landowner has also ended. There are currently 12 fishing stands remain on Laragh Lough, which are connected with a 100m wooden walkway. Again, these jetties are currently closed due to safety concerns as they are “subject to damage by the prevailing wind and waves coming across the lough.” 

In its report, the Council added one two “have provided good fishing”, and it would not be cost effective to maintain them. It will cost £21,000 to remove the stands and walkway.

Local fisherman Pat Lunny explained the jetties being removed from the Racecourse Lough had been badly placed in the first place, and the numbers fishing it these days were “relatively small.”

“Like a whole lot of these ideas they were decided by someone in an office who has never fished in a lake in his life,” he said. “You couldn’t fish from the jetties in the summer time, it became so weedy.

“The Racecourse lake, is like a cup and saucer, except the saucer is on top of the cup. The lake is generally quite shallow along the edges. At the back of the cinema you could throw out into 15ft of water, maybe, but all around the Irvinestown Road end you couldn’t throw a stone into six feet of water.”