COUNCIL leader Mike Goodman is calling on residents to make a real difference to our campaign at the click of a mouse.

Coun Goodman, who heads up Weymouth and Portland Borough Council, is urging people to spare five minutes and fill out the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s (MCA) online consultation into coastguard modernisation.

Each online response will count as a separate petition and will carry a lot of weight in the final consultation decision, he said.

People need to fill out Question 5 - the section that asks people if they have any further comments and answer that ‘The Maritime Operations Centre (MOC), or the coastguard supercentre, should be based in Weymouth and Portland, Coun Goodman said.

He added: “Most of the questions on the document relate to people’s local coastguard station.

“We need to say that if the modernisation is going to happen then we want the MOC to be in the area of Weymouth and Portland.”

Upwey resident Coun Goodman will be speaking at the Dorset Echo and the council’s Walk of Support for Portland Coastguard, which leaves from Weymouth Pavilion at 11am on September 3.

He said: “It’s fantastic that we’ve got a petition of nearly 10,000 people but the bottom line is that this will just get counted as one petition.

“If 1,000 people go online and say the operation centre should be based in Weymouth and Portland, this is reported as 1,000 recommendations that the centre should move to this area.

“The next few weeks is the time to get on to the MCA and answer the questions.

“The key question asks if there is anything else people wish to say – it’s a catch-all for everything.

“We want to bring these skilled jobs here. It will give people a better place to live and work.”

n People can find the consultation form on the MCA website at dft.gov.uk/mca.

They should then select the ‘Ships and Cargoes’ section to see a drop-down menu and should then click on the ‘Consultations’ section.

Web users should select ‘View our Current Consultations’.

From the ‘Current Consultations’ page they should select the first option of ‘HM Coastguard Proposals for Modernisation Consultation 2011’.

Under the ‘Consultation Documents’ menu select ‘Online Response Form’.

This will take you to the response form, where people must give their name, address, postcode and email before answering Question 5, which says ‘If you have any further comments, please write them here.’