At the end of this year, Government legislation will make it a legal requirement for any vessel under 12 metres in length fishing in English inshore waters to have I-VMS installed and operating.
At the beginning of the I-VMS project rollout, installation and grant submission deadlines were put in place for each of the four tranches.
This phased approach is to provide fishers with enough time to choose, buy, arrange installation and test signal transmission with their suppliers to the I-VMS Hub within their tranche. It also takes into account the expected increase in demand for devices and installation when the other smaller vessels in the fleet begin to acquire devices, later in the roll-out.
While significant progress is being made with Tranche 3 (6m-7.99m), there remains a small number of fishers in Tranche 1 (10m-11.99m) and Tranche 2 (8m-9.99m) who are still to act, resulting in potential delays in receiving the £650 grant payment available to help cover purchase and installation costs.
The I-VMS support and engagement team is contacting as many of those fishers as possible to provide advice and support to help them act as quickly as possible and claim the grant funding payments all fishers are entitled to.
Any remaining issues with integration to the I-VMS Hub, which may have delayed test signal transmissions, have now also been addressed.
The I-VMS Support and Engagement Team has recently undertaken a series of informal port visits and would like to thank fishers for their warm welcome, feedback and suggestions on the project.
Members of the team joined MMO colleagues on the quayside at Plymouth, Whitby, Scarborough and North Shields to answer questions and provide advice to those in the English under-12m fleet that are yet to purchase and install their preferred vessel monitoring device, as well as those who have already done so. More coastal visits are in the pipeline so please keep an eye on MMO's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram posts for
