Mr. Bernard Lucas:

This causes considerable frustration within the teams. This is just red tape that has gone way over board. It comes from not listening to or taking in the opinions of volunteers on the ground. With all due respect to the coastguard management who have staff and draw up protocols, that is great, but the protocols are done up in an office environment and do not necessarily transfer onto ground. Volunteers need to be able to carry out a dynamic risk assessment of everything. They are doing it in their heads when they go to a call-out and see that the path is slippy or the wind is blowing the wrong way. They cannot follow a set guideline of rules that is drawn up in an office for every scenario because it will not follow that. Volunteers are carrying out a dynamic risk assessment anyway. They and the teams need to be given this right to-----