The three fishery protection vessels operated by the Royal Navy will patrol UK waters for another five years under a £52 million lease-contract extension awarded by the Ministry of Defence to VT Group Plc.

Portsmouth-based HMS Tyne, HMS Severn and HMS Mersey are frequent visitors to Falmouth for rest and recreation periods in between fisheries patrols and maintenance programmes carried out by A&P Falmouth.

The ships carry out fishery protection duties on behalf of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with crews of each vessel boarding up to ten commercial ships a day, monitoring net quotas and type. As Royal Navy vessels they also police the UK's territorial waters on home defence and anti-terrorist tasks.

The vessels first entered service in 2003 and the latest contract will extend their duty period from 2008 until the end of 2013. By renewing the contract at this juncture the Ministry of Defence will save £8.1 million over five years.