CLYDE Coastguards blocked 'unsafe' plans for the Belfast station to take over their operations for two days.

They said they did it as part of industrial action being mounted against the UK Government's decision to close the Greenock base at the end of November and transfer its operations to Belfast and Stornoway.

Belfast was supposed to assume control of Clyde's work on Thursday and Friday last week, but the Public and Commercial Services Union stopped it.

Union representative Calum Murray said: "We are not co-operating with exercises like this during industrial action.

"We thought it would be unsafe for Belfast to be in charge because they don't have local knowledge." Mr Murray also revealed that, on Friday night, the Stornoway Coastguard Station lost many of its circuits to radio remote sites for over three hours and needed volunteers to leave their homes and place of work to provide an emergency service.

He said: "This outage effected the vast majority of services to south of the Isle of Lewis.

"This is one of the reasons that the PCS Union are opposing the closure of Clyde Coastguard or any coastguard station until at least a national network has been tried and tested and proved to provide a better service than already exists.

"It's not just jobs that are being lost, it's people's lives that are being put at risk.

"It's time the goverment did a u-turn." He invited people to find out more at a public meeting to be held on Thursday in Gourock's Gamble Halls from 6 to 8pm.

Mr Murray added: "The closure of Clyde Coastguard will not only impact on the local economy, but will put public safety at risk.

"The public meeting is your chance to find out what those risks are and what closure really means to you." The UK Department for Transport said it is scaremongering to suggest plans to modernise the co-ordination of coastguard rescues will lead to a reduction in coastal safety.

A spokeswoman said: "The changes confirmed last year do not in any way reduce front-line rescue teams, and will deliver a resilient and fully networked national rescue coordination service."