Taking Spatial Justice to the Coast: The Curious Case of Welsh Fishing Byelaws and the Battle for Defining the Value of the Tidal Wye and Usk Rivers

Spatial justice concerns not merely how space is distributed and managed, but how accessible spaces and places are in relation to how they are defined and understood. This ontological and epistemological position aims to understand how people relate to space, how they create place and how spaces and places relate to identity. From legal and spatial planning disciplines, spatial justice considers the relationship between space and law. In this research we use spatial justice as an ontological and methodological position to explore spatial imaginaries at the coast. Using a detailed case study of the development of new fishing byelaws affecting the Wye and Usk rivers in Wales, we explore how legislative requirements related to environmental regulation can collide with lived experience of coastal communities and how a spatial justice lens allows for deeper understanding of why coastal regulatory conflicts can occur. We explore the implications of applying spatial justice to coastal space and coastal regulatory decisions before presenting detailed decision process mapping and narrative of the byelaw’s development. Our findings attest to the need to rethink the relationship between laws and values and further to explore ways of building capacity within coastal regulators to manage regulatory processes with increased reflexivity, deliberation and partnership forms of engagement to enable enhanced embodiment of the diverse values in coastal areas.