Health and safety sinks Coastguard
Lifesaving team resigns en masse in row over bureaucracy
THEIR job is to save lives, dealing with all kinds of emergencies from shipping in distress to animals stranded on clifftops.
But a team of coastguards found themselves tied up in so much red tape, driven by health and safety, that they were no longer allowed even to set off a smoke flare to guide a rescue helicopter.
Now the seven coastguards with 100 years of service between them have resigned in protest at new rules which they claim are making it impossible to save lives.
In a tense stand-off the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has taken their truck and changed the locks on the station so the men cannot retrieve belongings.
It leaves a large area of the north-west Highlands not covered by a local Coastguard station, raising fears for public safety.
For decades the Coastguard crew at Durness in Sutherland has given sterling service, but the men quit at the end of last month, telling bosses they had wrecked their small, professional team with ‘needless bureaucracy and lack of support’.
Over the years the crew have saved many lives, often involved in perilous cliff rescues, overnight searches scouring wild terrain for missing people and once discovering the body of a murder victim, as well as helping deal with the biggest mass stranding of pilot whales in Scotland.
The team claims increasing restrictions to meet health and safety requirements meant they could no longer perform even the simplest of tasks without first becoming officially ‘certified’, which has not happened.
Station officer Alex Morrison, 64, a coastguard for 37 years, was the first to resign last month, followed by the rest of his team.
Last night, Mr Morrison said: ‘We were not even deemed competent to let off an orange smoke signal for helicopter landings. I have been doing that stuff for 37 years. There’s so many changes coming out, I just felt it was time to go.
‘We were under-trained and, in this day and age, if something goes wrong then your head is on the block. So we were waiting to be trained under the new programme and to be certified.
‘We were waiting on several occasions over the year for training with the helicopter – once we were even planning to go to Inverness, over 100 miles away, but each time it was cancelled.
‘A few months ago we were promised a video on the helicopter landing operation which would make us competent, but that never arrived. We used to do a lot of medical evacuations during the night. We even used to refuel the helicopter. But we were getting more and more paperwork and less and less practical groundwork, which is what we needed. There’s no coverage for the area now – I dread to think what will happen if there’s an emergency.’
Following their mass resignation Scott Macpherson, 35, said: ‘They haven’t thanked us for what we did over the years. It is a slap in the face. They have wrecked the team with needless bureaucracy and lack of support.’
Medical evacuations by helicopter cannot now happen at Durness and the nearest Coastguard teams are 18 miles away at Kinlochbervie – only partially operational – and Melness, nearly 30 miles away and said to be ‘off-line’ because of the same bureaucratic problems.
It is understood that, following enquiries by The Scottish Mail on Sunday, Coastguard chiefs will fly north next week for crisis talks.
An MCA spokesman said: ‘The head of coastal operations is speaking to the Durness Coastguard rescue team to establish their concerns and how they can be addressed. If the local community call 999 and ask for the Coastguard, they will receive the same service they always have.’
VOLUNTEER coastguards deserve our utmost respect and whatever support they need to carry out their duties.
These brave men and women work in often dangerous conditions to protect others; their selflessness is both inspiring and humbling.
So we are deeply concerned to learn that an entire team of volunteers in Sutherland has resigned, claiming red tape has made it impossible for them to for their jobs properly.
The seven-strong team, with 100 years of service between them, have been treated shamefully by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which should have done all it could to ensure they were able to continue in their roles.
Now a large area around Durness is not covered by a staffed coastguard station.
This situation cannot be allowed to continue. These local heroes deserve so much better.