Queensferry rescue team given a new lease of life

Scotland's busiest lifeboat station is to get a new home by the end of the year, as well as a bigger rescue boat.

Work on a new 400,000 station in South Queensferry will begin this week, and once complete the building will include a larger storage area for the vessel - an Atlantic 85 lifeboat - as well as a training room, kitchen, mechanic's workshop and new facilities for its shop.

The new station is expected to be double the size of the current building, and will be located nearby on the west side of Hawes Pier.

Constructed 30 years ago, the current station is unusual in that it opens on to the road instead of having a ramp to launch the boat straight into the water.

Station bosses were considering shifting the access, but operations manager Tom Robertson said the closeness of neighbouring buildings meant it was more practical to build a new premises altogether.

"With the size of the new boat it wasn't possible to get an entry from the rear, we would have had to build a way out on to the roadway and that would not have been allowed," he said.

"We launch the boat usually in eight minutes from the time the coastguard informs us to the time we actually get on the water. (With the new station] the boat will be pushed out and down the pier and then turned and launched. It could save a couple of minutes, I'd imagine."

As well as new facilities for the crew, the 160,000 rescue boat will also come with a radar, updated plotter, and a radio direction finder, which Mr Robertson said could lead to speedier rescues.

"It means that if a person's in trouble, if they transmit a VHA set (distress signal], we can follow the signal to find them in poor visibility. It'll be a far better chance of locating the casualty quicker."

The new station is a much more sophisticated establishment than the original, which was housed in a "totally basic" wooden shed that doubled as the ferry ticket office at South Queensferry.

Mr Robertson said fundraising for the new station had taken the best part of four years and although work has already started on the new boat, its major sponsor will not be revealed until it's safely in its new home in the autumn.