THE future of bait digging at Fareham Creek will be decided at a public inquiry next week.

Commercial diggers hope to persuade the government to lift a ban on collecting ragworm and lugworm from the mudflats.

They say a permanent block on the internationally protected reserve would hit the Solent's fishing industry.

But environmentalists are concerned that the teams of men working there have disturbed rare wading birds from nesting during the winter.

One compromise could be for environment watchdog English Nature to licence a restricted number of diggers to farm the mudflats.

Neither side in the dispute was prepared to comment today on the inquiry's possible results. A spokesman for Fareham Borough Council said: "The inquiry members will be talking about how to make sure the inhabitants of Fareham Creek are not disturbed. It is an area used by birds and individuals. We will look at the interests of both."

Fareham Creek is part of a larger site of special scientific interest created by the government and European Union to protect wading birds such as the curlew, redshank, green-shank and bar-tailed godwit.

Earlier this year English Nature was granted a special nature conservation order to prosecute commercial bait diggers at Fareham, Gosport and Portsmouth.

It meant for the first time that diggers could be fined up to £2,000 by magistrates or up to £5,000 in crown court and ordered to pay unlimited penalties to mend damage they had caused.

The two-day inquiry will be held in Fareham council's civic offices on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The latest bait digging battle comes just days after Ray Langdon, chairman of Itchen Waterfront Association, claimed excessive bait digging in Chessel Bay, Southampton, was cutting off the food supply for indigenous wildlife.

Mr Langdon urged city council bosses to employ a full-time warden to patrol the bay - a site of special scientific interest.

Southampton council has vowed to work with English Nature to clamp down on excessive bait digging.