GUERNSEY’S territorial limits are no closer to being extended, two years after the UK agreed the island should have more control over the surrounding waters.

Sea Fisheries asked the UK Government in July 2007 to accommodate Guernsey’s longstanding desire to introduce fishing licences from three to 12 miles around the Bailiwick.

The Ministry of Justice said it wanted to extend Guernsey’s, Sark’s and Alderney’s territorial seas to 12 miles, as long as the islands could agree how collectively to control the additional waters by signing a Fisheries Management Agreement.

That has still not been signed.

Guernsey Fishermen’s Association president Willie Falla said his members were frustrated that the extension was yet to be sorted.

‘Everybody wants the limit to go to 12 miles,’ he said. ‘According to Commerce and Employment, it was supposed to be coming ages ago but we have not heard anything else about it.’

The islands have always had control out to three miles but in 2003 Guernsey decided, with Sark and Alderney, to create an ordinance that would allow it to issue licences from its waters out to 12 miles.

That decision was challenged by Jersey and UK fishing companies that had been refused licences. The States eventually lost a four-year legal battle when the Privy Council ruled in 2007 that the ordinance was unlawful.

The legal fight continues this week as four UK fishing companies pursue a claim of damages against the States.