No resolution in coastguard dispute

12:45pm Friday 20th April 2007

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Hundreds of miles of the British coast will be without coastguard cover this weekend, as no resolution has been reached in the Fishguard coastguard insurance dispute.

Voluntary crews in 21 stations nationwide have withdrawn cover in support of the Fishguard dispute, centred around a volunteer who had to give up his job and is now 25% disabled due to injuries incurred in a rescue.

Brian McFarlane, of Goodwick, now receives a £12,500 temporary MCA pension. However, he is worried this could be withdrawn at any time because he has been refused permanent injury benefit.

Fishguard's station officer, John Davies, said that the inadequacy of the insurance provided has made volunteer coastguards "deeply distrustful"of the management.

Local volunteer crews at Fishguard, Broad Haven and St Davids stopped responding to calls at midnight on Wednesday. They have been joined by crews from as far afield as Western Supermare, Oxwich and south west Scotland.

Chief coastguard, Peter Diamond,and his team met with Fishguard coastguards last night.

After a five hour meeting, no definite resolution was reached but both sides are hopeful that the dispute will be over soon.

A document was drafted during the meeting that outlined a way forward out of the deadlock.

The suggestions in the document are due to be discussed at a top level management meeting at MCA headquarters today.

"We are taking this to the highest level of management to sort it out," said a spokesman for the Maritime Coastguard Agency which has issued assurances that the "strike" will not compromise rescue cover and that contingencies are in place.

" Yesterday's meeting was a long and constructive one."

Mr Davies said that he was pleased that negotiations were going in the right direction, but stressed that there was immense strength of feeling on the side of the volunteer coastguards.

"They have lost our trust and goodwill," he said of coastguard management. "Their next actions and how quickly they happen, are needed to rebuild that trust and goodwill.

"We don't want to take this action but while we are uninsured we will put our friends and family first. We are staying as we are until proper insurance is put into place for us. We want this resolved really quickly."