News / Second coastguard consultation ends
MORE than 500 responses have come in to the Maritime & Coastguard Agency’s latest consultation on the future of the coastguard service.
This second consultation follows the MCA’s abandonment of its initial plans to close either Lerwick or Stornoway’s coastguard station along with seven others around the country in July, following a seven month campaign
There are concerns among coastguard staff that the MCA wants to leave the service chronically understaffed.
Shetland coastguard station has submitted its own response to the review, local staff reiterating their belief that both Lerwick and Stornoway should remain open.
They have also questioned the need for a marine operations centre (MOC) based in Southampton at MCA headquarters, which would have central control of all emergencies throughout the country.
There are suspicions within the PCS union that the MOC could be used to run an emergency service in the event of a strike over pay, such as has been experienced in recent years.
The MCA say that an MOC is necessary to build resilience into the coastguard response, and would deal with national emergencies such as the Piper Alpha disaster in 1998 or the 1993 Braer oil spill.
However coastguard staff believe a similar service could continue to be provided by the existing 19 coastguard stations.
The consultation closed on Friday and an independent review is to be carried out over the next two weeks before the outcome is announced in Parliament.
The MCA said they had received around 540 electronic responses to the consultation, less the half the number who responded to the initial consultation.
Bob Skinley, PCS branch treasurer in Lerwick, said: “We have submitted a station response to the second consultation process. The proposals are better than they were, they could hardly have been worse, but they still leave a lot of questions to answer and they don’t even go into the pay and grading structure.”
On Tuesday MCA chief executive Alan Massey visits Lerwick as part of his regular tour of stations, where he will answer questions from staff.
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