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Friday, September 12, 2008, 09:15
The MP laid down a series of House of Commons written questions aimed at Secretary of State for Transport Ruth Kelly demanding why and how the Hope Cove volunteer coastguard team was forbidden from rescuing a drowning girl.
The answers — which came straight by the boss of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency Jim Fitzpatrick — have left the MP so unsatisfied that now he wants a full commons debate on the issue.
Mr Steen questioned the coastguard boss' statement that the role of the inshore rescue boat had changed from 2003 when the Salcombe inshore lifeboat was installed.
Mr Fitzpatrick said: "The role of the boat was to support first line assets in a waterborne rescue capacity. However, since the Salcombe RNLI Lifeboat was installed in 2003, that role has changed.
"The Salcombe Lifeboat operates extensively in the Hope Cove and Bigbury Bay areas and the need for the Hope Cove Lifeboat to fulfil a rescue support role has subsequently diminished."
But Mr Steen said: "If the role has been changed then no-one has been told. No one was told Hope Cove, no-one told the district council and no-one told the tourists who use the beaches," he said.
He also rejected Mr Fitzpatrick's claims that the RNLI had upgraded the rescue boat at Bantham — which could now reach Hope Cove in less than six minutes.
"The boat at Bantham is a rubber duck, a surf boat about three meters long. This very afternoon it had to be called off duty because of the heavy swell.
"Unless it is jet powered it would take twice the six minutes to get to Hope Cove and that is on the basis that it could cope with the seas."
And he also attacked the Hope Cove rescue boat rescue figures which were only supplied back to 2004 and recorded a total of 28 call outs in four years.
"The figures are wholly misleading. The true figures are far more dramatic. Many hundreds of people have been rescued or assisted by the boat in the last eight years," Mr Steen added.
"The information, wherever he got it from, is wholly incorrect and this will force me, as soon as the House returns, to table a request for a debate on the floor on the Hope Cove inshore lifeboat."
The Hope Cove rescue row blew up after the boat was used to save a teenage girl even though it was not officially on station and had been told not to launch.
Faced with waiting up to half an hour for the Salcombe inshore lifeboat to arrive the coastguard team led by farmer and publican Ian Pedrick launched anyway.
A few hours later coastguard bosses had the Hope Cove boat towed away and put under lock and key in nearby Kingsbridge.
The boat was returned to the village in time for the huge Hope Cove Weekend influx of thousands of visitors thanks to the intervention of Mr Steen.
However the boat crew have now been restricted on how far they can travel to carry out rescues and there are concerns about the very future of the boat at Hope Cove where there has been a lifeboat of some sort for more than a century.
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