Why Furness fish and chip shops feared for their futures 20 years ago

Text for Monday Spread on Fish and chip shops

Headline: Worries that fish and chip shops would vanish in Furness if price rose to £3

Strapline: Strict new rules to protect European fish stocks raised fears that many takeaway customers would turn to pizza, curries and kebabs

ENJOYING fish and chips in Furness these days might cost you somewhere in the £6 to £7 range but 20 years ago there were fears that Euro rules to protect fish stocks could put shops out of business which were then charging less than half that price.

Like many Euro-scares, it turned out to be less devastating than planned but the region's chippies have faced many challenges through the years - including the new difficulties in facing coronavirus.

The Mail, on Saturday December 18, in 1999, noted: "Barrow's traditional fish and chip shops - and nearly 100 people who work in them - face a battering by Eurocrats in Brussels.

"EC commissioners may decide on a move which could put up the price of a packet of fish and chips from an average of £2.10 to nearer £3.

"And that, say owners of Barrow's 25 fried fish shops, could mean many of them and their workers have had their chips.

"They predict that customers will desert them for pizza, Chinese, Indian and kebab takeaways and that good old-fashioned chip shops will have to close.

"British chip shops have already absorbed a more than 50 per cent increase in the price of fish in the past year without passing the cost on to their customers - making profit margins perilously narrow."

Eddie Maloney, of Andy's chip shop, Walney, said: "We have already absorbed a colossal increase in prices over the past year.

"Now we make more money on a sausage than a piece of fish."

Dave Crosland spoke for the Holding chip shop, which had been on Rawlinson Street for almost 50 years.

He said: "If we have another price increase I think we will have to close our doors.

"Up to now we have held our prices as low as we dare."

By January 2003 the threat from officials at the EU fisheries was to cod supplies as new quotas were introduced but it seemed that Barrow takeaway fans only wanted haddock.

Keith Devlin, of Dev's Plaice, on Rawlinson Street, Barrow, said: "We have the odd customer who asks for cod, but only about one in 200.

"We find that once they have haddock they come back for more."

A spokesman for the Olympic, on the corner of Buccleuch Street, Barrow, and at Dalton, said: "We serve cod and haddock and will carry on doing so.

"We serve fresh fish, not frozen, and find people prefer cod because it is so white and very juicy."