Lifeboat charities across the UK can now bid for government cash for life-saving equipment. Namely, Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani visited Oxfordshire Lowland Search and Rescue Service (OxSAR) on 4 July 2019, under the Maritime Safety Week, in order to launch this year’s £1 million rescue boat grant fund.
The fund is open to search and rescue teams in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to acquire new boats, engines or other equipment.
Until now, the £6 million scheme has paid for 82 new boats, over 1,800 items of equipment for rescue operations and more than 5,000 items of crew kit to keep volunteers safe on missions.
Speaking about the fund, Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani said:
We want everyone to be safe on or around water, but occasionally people get into trouble. These charities do amazing work and I’ve seen first-hand how they help people in their hour of need
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In addition, in May 2019, the UK announced that it had secured an additional £1 million for the fund, taking it into its sixth year and bringing the overall total to £6 million.
OxSAR has previously received around £40,000 from the fund to buy a new rescue boat, lifevests, drysuits and other equipment to help them find and rescue people, while also keeping the volunteers who risk their lives to save others safe.
This year’s fund has opened for bids under the Department for Transport’s first ever Maritime Safety Week. At the start of the week, the government launched its Maritime Safety Action Plan, which establishes ambitious targets to reduce the number of preventable deaths on UK waterways.
