HAVING worked as a full-time fisherman for eight years, between 1975 and 1983, and later owned a fish processing business on Oxbridge Trading Estate, in Stockton, I have had a considerable amount of experience in both the catching and processing sides of the fishing industry.

I found the recent TV programme Fish Fight Campaign with TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, in which he protested about fish discarding, interesting, if a little bit misguided.

British fishermen are partly responsible for their own demise.

In the Seventies, the EU introduced a decommissioning program for fishing boats.

The intention was to relieve pressure on over-fished stocks by giving fishermen grants to decommission their old boats.

Unfortunately, at the same time, the EU was still making grants and low interest loans available for fishermen to buy new boats.

Some trawler/skipper owners used the money they received for decommissioning their old boats as a deposit to buy new, larger and more powerful fishing boats.

Consequently the pressure on over-fished stocks increased, not decreased.

Now the stocks have reached such a low level some trawler owners are being forced out of the industry.

Keith Dewison, Billingham.