It seems to me that the answer to the threat posed by the giant oil tankers that are using Lyme Bay as a parking place, while their greedy owners wait for oil prices to rise, is for the government to penalise the companies that own them. (Oil fear for our coastline, Daily Echo, November 20).

Firstly, the Royal Navy and Coastguards should be charged with logging details of each vessel involved.

If they are within territorial waters charge the owners a quarter of a million pounds a day.

If they are not within territorial waters then as soon as they berth at British port to discharge their overpriced cargoes, hit them with a similar penalty fee for each day that they were anchored off our coastline.

It really is time all governments started to get tough with huge international corporations who pay relatively little in taxes on the obscene profits that they make.

Robert Readman, Norwich Avenue West, Bournemouth