A fisheries expert said this week that no amount of extra regulation or legislation could stop those determined to go out onto a beach in darkness to pick cockles.

Mark Stafford, a fisheries officer, warned that more controls on cockling in Morecambe Bay would be extremely difficult to implement as it was legally difficult, time consuming and could be challenged by genuine fishermen.

Mr Stafford, of the Sea Fisheries Committee of South Wales, spoke out after the North Western and North Wales Sea Fisheries Committee refused to comment beyond a short statement issued on the day of the tragedy.

He said regardless of what measures were in place, cutting off public beaches was not simple. He asked: "Are you going to stop people going down onto a beach with little children to make sand castles because sooner or later the tide is going to come in?"

Mr Stafford said case law meant sea fisheries committees could only involve themselves in issues relating to their powers.

He said: "We should not be oblivious to the health and safety risk but considerations like this should be with those who have the expertise and resources."

But Mr Stafford explained that the public right to fish was contained in the Magna Carta and that fishery committee powers were limited.

A licence system exists on the Burry Inlet, in South Wales, to regulate numbers and confine a section of bed to licensed cockle fishermen. The licences cost £700 a year.

Mr Stafford said it was no guard against people who turned up to cash in, knowing the system was difficult to police.

But Russell Bradley, the former chief executive of the Association of Sea Fisheries Committees for England and Wales, told the Gazette that regulation and enforcement was a difficult job for committees.

"The statutory powers they have are against a backdrop of the man in the street's right to fish the sea. Sea Fisheries Committees as a group have been campaigning for a long time for more powers and more up-to-date legislation as they are working to a piece of statute which is hundreds of years old," he said.

Dr Andrew Askew, of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain, told the Gazette the committee had very little manpower to police mass invasions. He explained that Morecambe Bay was one of the few areas in the country where cockles were raked by hand. In other areas such as the East Coast, suction dredging by licensed vessels was carried out but it met criticisms it was too damaging to the environment. He said in reality it could sometimes be easier to monitor a smaller number of fishing vessels than hundreds of hand pickers.

Cockles picked in Morecambe Bay have been taken by boat to Holland for processing, or by road to Belgium and Spain.