News / Conveners meet penning before MPS grill MCA
A DELEGATION of six highlands and islands conveners will lobby UK shipping minister next month to stop the closure of coastguard stations in Lerwick and Stornoway.
The meeting with Mike Penning in London takes place one day before the powerful House of Commons transport select committee interviews senior executives with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), including chief executive Sir Alan Massey, on 8 February.
Committee chairman Louise Ellman MP said they had received many representations from people about the MCA’s plans to close nine coastguard stations around the country. Leaving Scotland with one 24 hour a day operation based in Aberdeen.
The 11 member committee has previously criticised the MCA over its failure to adequately consult before closing coastguard stations and is responding to pressure from MPs in the affected areas and from local people.
Ms Ellman said: “People want to know whether there has been adequate consultation and what the possible implications of these closures will be.”
Shetland Islands Council convener Sandy Cluness welcomed the committee’s decision to take up local people’s concerns and praised the level of campaigning that has been going on ever since the MCA announced their plans just before Christmas.
“Hopefully people are starting to realise what a stupid idea this is for all the money they are going to save,” he said.
Mr Cluness will join conveners from Orkney, Western Isles, Highland, Moray and Argyll and Bute for the meeting with the shipping minister on 7 February when they will press him on the closure plans and the decision to remove the MCA’s emergency towing vessels from service in September.
On Wednesday Shetland’s marine safety sub committee met in Lerwick allowing representatives of the council, the police, Lerwick Port Authority and environmental groups to grill Stornoway-based MCA coastal safety manager Ian Burgess about the consultation to close either Lerwick or Stornoway co-ordinating stations.
SIC harbourmaster Roger Moore said they pressed Mr Burgess on the overall impact the closure of the Lerwick station would have on a remote community like Shetland.
“We have a tenuous connection with Aberdeen based on unreliable communication links and the proposed new system relies heavily on this technology to control things from another station,” Captain Moore said.
“We also talked about the fact we are a small island with low unemployment and the availability of the coastguard is part of our category one civil emergency response, the loss of which would not be helpful.”
Meanwhile the Save Shetland Coastguard campaign has discovered that the Aberdeen coastguard co-ordinating station costs the MCA more money than any other station.
A response to a Freedom of Information Act request showed that the annual rent alone was more than three times the total running costs of some other stations, leaving aside the cost of staff.
The Aberdeen station costs £280,311 to operate every year, compared to £53,036 to run the Shetland base and £55,150 to run Stornoway. Rent alone for the Aberdeen station costs £154,350.
Become a member of Shetland News
Shetland News is asking its many readers to consider paying for membership to get additional features and services: -
- Remove non-local ads;
- Bookmark posts to read later;
- Exclusive curated weekly newsletter;
- Hide membership messages;
- Comments open for discussion.
If you appreciate what we do and feel strongly about impartial local journalism, then please become a member of Shetland News by either making a single payment, or setting up a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription.
Already a member? Sign in to hide this message.
