Guernsey Coastguard returns to the... coast
GUERNSEY’S Coastguard is returning to St Peter Port Harbour after eight years at the Joint Emergency Services Control Centre.
The move is taking place next week.
The coastguard is being brought together with Guernsey Ports Vessel Traffic Services to create a dedicated maritime operations centre in the newly-rebuilt signal station.
Guernsey Ports said this will allow the two services to share staff, resources and systems, which will lower costs and increase resilience, and reflects the approach adopted in other jurisdictions, including Jersey.
VTS was introduced in 2019 to improve safety in local waters and provides round-the-clock monitoring of vessels in the Little Russel and the approaches to St Peter Port and St Sampson’s harbours.
The coastguard, which manages the response to incidents at sea, has been stationed at JESCC’s headquarters since 2015.
While JESCC staff will continue to receive emergency 999 calls, if they are of a maritime nature they will be passed to the new harbour-based operations centre.
Harbour master and coastguard head Captain David Barker said the move would help the service operators.
‘The working environment for them is better, without all the other noise of police, fire and ambulance calls going on in the background. And it means they can listen to [emergency] channel 16 permanently whereas up there you couldn’t have that on speaker.’
The rebuilt signal station includes multi-site radar capability, satellite tracking, CCTV, maritime VHF radio, and electronic and paper charts.
It also has equipment for conducting search and rescue missions and a dedicated space from which these operations can be controlled.
If there is an emergency at sea which requires a multi-agency response, the new centre can be used as a tactical command suite.
‘The co-location of our coastguard and VTS functions makes best use of the first-class facilities at the signal station building, which was designed specifically for maritime operations,’ said Captain Barker.
Home Affairs’ director of operations, justice and regulation, Dave Le Ray, said Guernsey Ports approached Home last year asking to have the coastguard relocated.
‘Officers from Home Affairs and JESCC have been working closely with Guernsey Ports on this initiative,’ he said.
When the coastguard was first moved to JESCC, there had been concerns raised by the St Peter Port lifeboat station’s operational team that lives at sea were being put at risk by the move, due to a lack of local maritime knowledge among JESCC staff and a lack of resources.
