Marine Office closure programme

Shipping union RMT today slammed the Maritime and Coastguard Agency for trying to bury bad news by sneaking out a decision to axe and downgrade seven Marine Offices via the blog on their website.

Offices at Tyne, Harwich, Norwich and Orpington will close with the offices at Dover, Falmouth and Milford Haven downgraded to satellites.
RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:

“This is a deeply disappointing decision, made worse by the MCA sneaking it out on their blog. The decision, as far as it goes makes no mention at all of the impact on seafarers from closing Marine Offices and we continue to believe that the MCA’s Survey and Inspection capacity would be compromised by a shrinking of the national network.

There is nothing from the MCA on where seafarers living and working on the east coast of England can go to get eye tests, training, certification and other services essential to ratings and officers if these offices close. We cannot accept a situation where UK seafarers of today and tomorrow are prevented from taking up jobs and training in the domestic shipping industry due to a lack of basic support from Government. RMT will continue to fight these closures.”

RMT National Secretary Steve Todd added:
“The status of and support for UK seafarers in the domestic shipping industry will again be undermined if the Government and the MCA are allowed to get away with these damaging Marine Office closures. The Tyne office, for example, the busiest in the country for seafarer exams, should be at the centre of sustaining existing seafarer employment in the north east. The existing Marine Office network should also be central to a revival in UK rating and officer numbers which would be in line with the Government’s policy to double the size of the UK registered fleet by 2020 which would add hundreds of ships to the Red Ensign Group. When the dust settles on the Tory Government’s in-house coronation, we will be demanding that the Shipping Minister tell the MCA in no uncertain terms that these closures plans are unacceptable and must be scrapped.”

 Ends