South Dorset MP Richard Drax has accused the government of ‘incompetence’ over its handling of the decision to axe the Portland Coastguard helicopter.

Last week Portland helicopter supporters celebrated a victory when the government’s Transport Select Committee wrote a letter to the Secretary of State for Transport, Patrick McLoughlin, urging him to take action to consult with the public about plans to scrap the life-saving service.

Following evidence from Mr Drax and others, the committee voiced concerns about the helicopter procurement and that consultation with those affected by the plans was not undertaken.

Following that letter, Mr Drax has written to the Transport Select Committee asking for more support.

While thanking the committee chairman Louise Ellman, for the group’s strong criticism of the plans to axe Portland helicopter in 2017, Mr Drax asked for further support.

He said the response from the Department for Transport, which defended the plans, was ‘not reassuring’.

In his letter to Mrs Ellman, Mr Drax said: “I fear that we face government intransigence at best and incompetence at worst. The fact that no one consulted at all on these plans is breathtaking.”

In the Depar-tment for Trans-port’s statement they defended the plans to scrap the helicopter, stating that: “A modern, faster fleet of helicopters operating from 10 full-time bases will provide a more reliable overall service that still meets the key search and rescue requirements and does not increase the overall risk of loss of life.”

Mr Drax said he was ‘baffled’ by this statement, writing: “The evidence – and there is plenty of it – is totally the opposite. And, interestingly, we already have a fast, modern helicopter at Portland and there’s nothing on the market at the moment which can beat it.”

He added: “I must repeat the most important point... that one helicopter, however modern and fast, can only be in one place at any one time. If, as happens now, both the Solent and Culdrose helicopters have been tasked simultaneously, we will never get the cover we need in time, especially when victims are in the water and have only minutes to stay conscious, certainly during the winter months.”

Responding to the Department for Transport statement that flight times for the new helicopters to get to incidents from bases would drop from 23 minutes to 19, Mr Drax wrote: “This is blatantly untrue.

“Even on the department’s own analysis, flying time from Lee on Solent and Culdrose will be 25 minutes and 40 minutes, respectively.”

‘A MORE RELIABLE SERVICE’

A DfT spokesman said: “A modern, faster fleet of helicopters at 10 full-time bases will provide a more reliable service that still meets key search and rescue requirements and does not increase overall risk of loss of life.

“Independently verified analysis shows that the two bases from which it would be operationally most sensible to remove search and rescue operations would be the daytime-only base of Portland and RAF Boulmer in Northumberland.

“Installing state of the art helicopters at 10 bases around the UK will allow 85% of very high, high and medium risk areas to be reached within half an hour, up from 70% at present, and average incident response times will drop from 23 minutes to 19.”

 

CAMPAIGNERS are urging people to sign up to both a paper petition and an epetition to save the helicopter.

If the petition can reach 100,000 signatures then a debate could be triggered in the House of Commons.

So far 13,317 people have signed up to the online petition.

To sign up to the epetition visit http://epetitions. direct.gov.uk /petitions/36619