27 arrivals for the period
Whitefish totalled 2,000 boxes from two Scottish trawl landings and three Anglo-Spanish liners. The Banff-registered Endeavour IV and the Venture III, both owned and run by the Lovie family from Whitehills, landed shots of monkfish, ling and cod from the Shelf Edge. The majority of the Anglo-Spanish fleet continue to work further north landing hake and ling into Lochinver or Scrabster as is the pattern at this time of year.
Shellfish landings were also fairly quiet with ten landings from visiting trawlers combined with the efforts of the local fleet. The offshore crabber Our Hazel continues to land weekly; catches are exported live to the Chinese market.
Non-fishing activities were restricted to fish-farm support vessels with the tug Tie Venture and the landing craft Arromanches day running to the Summer Isles.
Harbour projects are starting to gather some pace. Highland Council has agreed to sell the Wee Jetty to the harbour and legal formalities should be concluded in the next four weeks. Now that the technical details have finally been agreed, work is scheduled to start on the refurbishment next week. The project has attracted funding from HIE and EMFF and the shortfall will be covered by Ullapool Harbour Trust. The work site will be fenced off from next week and the site will be monitored by CCTV. We apologise for any inconvenience that the restricted access will cause but hopefully the end result will be worth waiting for.
Separately, following months of discussion, Highland Council has agreed to lease the ground floor of the public toilet building to the harbour. The plan is to convert the space into a designated Changing Place accessible toilet and a separate workshop for community use. The Changing Place element of the project has attracted significant funding from Transport Scotland and Ullapool Harbour Trust will cover costs relating to development of the community workshop. The contract is currently out to tender and the project awaits a planning decision but all being well works will start early next month.