Coastguard campaigners fear the worst

Campaigners attempting to retain the coastguard service at Swansea are bracing themselves for bad news today. The indications are that Shipping Minister Mike Penning will uphold recommendations to scrap the service based at Mumbles.

If things go the way the pundits expect, then prepare for some abject hand-wringing by Conservative and Liberal Democrats over how their coalition government had dumped its cost-saving burden on south west Wales yet again. It will be particularly public snub to tory AMs Suzy Davies and Byron Davies who wangled a private meeting with Penning during a local visit. But somehow we suspect they will weather the indignity.

Swansea is the busiest maritime rescue coordination centre in Wales and the second busiest in the UK, organising on average over 1,700 inshore rescue operations a year. Government ministers earlier suggested that Swansea could afford to lose the service because of the number of other public sector jobs in the city such as the DVLA.


Update: Confirmation of the bad news.