Harbour Master Andrew Ironside and his team have been charged with seeing firsthand how different systems operate with a view to determining which one would best suit the port's future needs.

He informed Harbour Commissioners at their monthly meeting, that he had been in touch with a number of ports, both in the UK and mainland Europe.

Having met with a leading supplier of e-auctions on the continent, Mr Ironside outlined a number of systems to the Harbour Board.

"There is a system that the Commissioners can implement pretty much immediately," he explained.

"Buyers are provided with a button, so there would be no shouting and the fish would be sold in lots."

Mr Ironside said the system was a flexible one which would enable the Commissioners to tailor it to suit the port's needs. He also pointed out that it should lead to the creation of greater revenue for the port. The estimated cost of the initial system would be in the region of 220,000 Euros, with the upgrade to allow distance bidding in the future, a further 35,000 Euro, the board was told.

Convener George Sutherland welcomed the progress made and the board gave the go-ahead for harbour officials to correlate more detailed information.

"The Commissioners have agreed to look into this to look at ways of increasing the revenue in the harbour. This is trying to put the harbour at the forefront of prawn and fish landings.

"This is an opportunity for us to go ahead with fish and build it up to a stage where fishermen are getting full benefit for their fish and ultimately for prawns being landed in the prot," he said.

Summing up the benefits of the system, Mr Sutherland said: "Fishermen get better prices and we, the harbour, get more revenue."

In the longer term, the plan would be to introduce distance buying, thereby increasing the range of buyers bidding for fish landed in Fraserburgh.

Commissioner Alex Wiseman said that the experience in the pelagic sector had been that the introduction of distance selling had led to improved prices.

The Harbour Master suggested to the board that they might consider the possibility for the Commissioners to work in conjunction with fishsalesmen in the working of the new system.

The vonvener said he was not ruling out such an arrangement, but stressed that priority was to get the best possible prices for the fishermen landing their produce in the port and thus generate more revenue for the harbour.

Control of the market, he added, would remain with the harbour board and their representatives. The convener also stressed that an e-auction would operate for six days per week.

The Commissioners agreed to establish an e-auction, following the decision by local fishsalesmen to withdraw from Saturday sales.

A meeting is scheduled to take place today (Thursday) between the Commissioners and a steering group, comprising representatives of both the Fraserburgh Fishsalesmen's Association and the local buyers' organisation.