|
ONE of the few remaining port based fishing industry training centre’s on the East Coast is to close because its funding has been cut.
The Seafood Training Centre in North Shields says it is losing its main £250,000 funding grants and regretfully will have to close its doors in North Shields. The operation will move to Amble Marina in Northumberland.
The government agency One North East says it has been forced to withdraw the grant because of "budget pressures".
Since it opened just over three years ago the centre has trained hundreds of people for the fish catching and the seafood industry and ran around 32 different courses.
The centre manager Dennis Osborne said” that effectively The Seafood Training Centre was closing down in North Shields and added that it will not be possible to continue running all the courses when it moves to Amble. The grant was our main income for the training centre and without it; it's not viable for us to continue in North Shields." He stated “However ASSTA (Assfigta) is NOT closing down and will continue to run as it has for the past 15 years independently with the backing of Seafish and wished to stress the Centre was only managed by ASSTA (Assfigta) and the Centre was only used as a base for ASSTA (Assfigta) and was not a permanent home” He added. “ASSTA (Assfigta)will always make the Safety training and additional training to the fishermen as our first priority as always and we will continue to be committed to raising the standards of training delivery, providing access to high quality, cost-effective training, promoting learning and development in the seafood industry, and providing access to information about the industry
A spokesman for One North East said: "We have supported the centre over the past three years investing substantial funding with a time bound grant that ended in June this year. We have agreed with the Seafood Training Centre that it is not possible to offer further funding because of budget pressures."
The Centre was managed by Anglo Scottish Seafish Training (ASSTA) which is part of the Seafish approved national training organisation which covers all aspects of the Fishing Industry. The area of coverage includes the North of England and North West of England. And has partnership links with The Seafood Training Academy which includes a number of fish related organisations including the Billingsgate Seafood Training School in London and the Humber Institute of Food Fisheries in Grimsby.
Should fisheries be closed during breeding time to allow stocks to reach more sustainable levels?
