Portland Coastguard Station will close in just over three years’ time, it has been confirmed.

Coastguard controllers based at a site in Fareham, near Portsmouth in Hampshire, will take over co-ordinating rescues along the Dorset coast when the station on Weymouth harbourside shuts.

It is one of eight co-ordination centres around the UK which will close by the end of March, 2015, with a total loss of 159 jobs.

More than 20 people are based at Portland Coastguard.

The decision was confirmed by shipping minister Mike Penning in a statement to MPs yesterday.

The Dorset Echo and Weymouth and Portland Borough Council led a Save Our Lifesavers campaign for a Maritime Operations Centre (MOC) to be based in the borough.

The campaign was backed by a 22,000-signature petition delivered to 10 Downing Street.

People also marched through Weymouth to show their support.

Campaigners were fighting against plans to site the centre in the Solent area but it was thought this would be at Southampton or Portsmouth.

In fact, the government said it would be based at the vacant fire control centre in Fareham.

There will also be round-the-clock co-ordination centres at Falmouth in Cornwall, Milford Haven and Holyhead in Wales, Bangor in Northern Ireland, Shetland, Aberdeen and Stornoway in Scotland, and Humber.

The MOC will have a back-up in Dover, which will retain its 24-hour role, and a small station in London will stay open. The new MOC will replace Lee-on-Solent in Hampshire.

Mr Penning insisted the changes would result in a ‘modernised, nationally networked, fully resilient’ service.

Campaigners said they were ‘bereft’ when it was indicated last month the MOC would not come to the borough.

South Dorset MP Richard Drax, who was in the House of Commons to hear Mr Penning’s statement said: “It’s tragic Portland is going by 2015.

“But we were assured it won’t be going until the MOC and the system is up and running.

“I told the minister how angry we all were in South Dorset and how thousands of people had campaigned to get the centre here.

“I also sought assurances that if the centre at Fareham doesn’t work then he will reconsider Weymouth and Portland.

“He couldn’t give me that assurance but in the statement he said the new centre will be looked at carefully to ensure it is fit for purpose implying that if it wasn’t, there would a be a rethink.”

Mr Drax added: “No doubt this is driven by money.

“We are the victim in this which is tragic.

“It’s very regrettable news.”

The coastguard co-ordination centres closing together with Portland are Swansea, Clyde and Forth in Scotland, Liverpool, Great Yarmouth, Brixham in Devon, and Walton on the Naze in Essex.

The confirmed blueprint significantly waters down the Government’s original closure plans.

Ministers ditched proposals which envisaged cutting the centres from 19 to nine, with three remaining open 24 hours a day.