The clink of glasses and the lapping of the tide was punctuated by giggling toddlers and the slurp of oysters at tables populated by people gently sizzling on a baking day on the Kent seaside.
But James Green, of the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company, had the demeanour of a man who had found grit in his mollusc. “I don’t like to use the term but it is nimbyism,” he said. “Why did it become personal? I don’t know really. Because we’re a family business, it’s a relatively small town?”