'Excellent year for Lochinver' as fish landings well above the national average
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Landings of fish were well above the national average at a Sutherland port in 2022, a report has detailed.
The number of tonnes of fish landed at Lochinver increased in 2022 from the previous year by 28.9 per cent to 11,141.
And the total value of the catch saw a massive 63.1 per cent bump to £19.8 million.
In Scotland as a whole the value of landings in 2022 was estimated at just over £480 million – up by 9.9 per cent. The weight of fish landings in Scotland in 2022 was estimated at just over 289,000 tonnes, 2.5 per cent higher than the 2021 total.
Marine Scotland has just published its annual report on Scottish Fisheries Statistics 2022, which gives detailed statistics on the landings in the country’s 18 ports.
The numbers are disaggregated by species, tonnage and value.
Eight of the 18 ports experienced increases in the tonnage landed, but nine had decreases and one no change.
Highland economist Tony Mackay said: “The value total was increased by inflation in the UK in 2022. There are various measures of inflation but the most relevant one (CPIH) shows annual inflation of 8.6 per cent.
“Deducting that from the 63.1 per cent suggests that the real increase in the value of Lochinver fish landings was still over 50 per cent.”
He added: “It was obviously an excellent year for Lochinver.”
The report shows that there were 22 registered fishing vessels at Lochinver at December 31, 2022, which was one per cent of the Scottish total of 2,038.
There were 196 registered fishers,who were five per cent of the national total of 4,117.
The statistics show that the value of Lochinver landings peaked at £29.5 million in 2017. There were then big falls to a low of £12.1 million in 2021, mainly because of the impacts of the various COVID pandemics.
The 2022 total is only 67 per cent of the 2017 peak.
In terms of tonnage, demersal fish accounted for 98.1 per cent of the Lochinver total and shellfish 1.9 per cent. The biggest white fish landings were saithe (18 per cent of the total), blue ling (18 per cent) hake (18 per cent) and ling (17 per cent).
The report shows that Lochinver ranked sixth out of all the Scottish ports in the value of its landings, behind Peterhead, Shetland, Scrabster, Fraserburgh and Ullapool.
However, Lochinver ranked first in the value change from 2021 to 2022.
Some 5,000 tons of fish were landed at Kinlochbervie during the year in question, down 12.3 per cent from the previous year. the value of the Kinlochbervie landings was £11.3 million, an increase of 11.6 per cent.
The Marine Scotland statistics show that there were 2,038 registered fishing vessles in the country at the end of December last year.
