FISHERMAN on the Yorkshire coast are urging the Government to give them more time to introduce new nets.

The nets, with smaller mesh, have to be used from next year to help conserve fishing stocks in the North Sea.

David Frampton, a Whitby skipper, said: "It will cost many fishermen such as myself £10,000 to change to the smaller mesh nets - we need more time to change over. I have a number of new nets and they cannot just be thrown away".

Despite the ruling, due to be introduced from January 1 under which mesh sizes will have to be reduced to 140mm, the Government's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has yet to tell the fishermen officially.

The North Eastern Sea Fisheries Committee, the voice of the fishing industry on the East Coast, is to pursue the matter.

"I am not against the new mesh sizes, but it is going to cost a lot of money to replace our existing nets and we need more time. We cannot just throw away our existing nets when in, many cases, they are relatively new. We usually need to replace them after a year."

The plea for more time comes as new figures show that fish landings at Scarborough have dropped dramatically in recent months.

In May, the landings were cut by a half to 76,527kg, and figures for March and April were little better, said borough harbour master Captain Bill Estill.

"Only four of the larger trawlers are now landing their catches regularly at Scarborough," he said.

"This significant reduction in landings is of major concern, and discussions with the fishermen are needed to see if this trend can be reversed."