A PRIVATISATION TOO FAR...

Perhaps the Con Dems think that height of Olympic-mania is a good time to bury bad news, and that few will notice yet another questionable privatisation, in this case the tendering of contracts for the UK’s air sea search and rescue helicopter service. Three companies are competing for contracts to provide search and rescue helicopter services throughout the UK.

The contract winner, or contract winners, would take over from Royal Navy and RAF and operate from sites across the UK. Three companies, Bond Offshore Helicopters, Bristow Helicopters and CHC Helicopter are on the shortlist published by the Department of Transport. The UK Westminster government hopes to reveal the winners early next year.

The business, has been broken up into three lots, which include covering coastguard duties.

• Lot one is to deliver the service at, or near, Sumburgh, Stornoway, Culdrose, Leconfield and Valley using helicopters with a minimum rescue capacity of eight casualties per aircraft.
• Lot two is to deliver the service from Lee-on-the-Solent and at, or near, Chivenor, Prestwick, Lossiemouth and Wattisham using helicopters with a minimum rescue capacity per aircraft of four casualties per aircraft.
• Lot three is a contract covering the requirements of both lots one and two.

This is in my opinion a privatisation too far and reveals the full extent of this Governments slightly crazed ideologically driven desire to privatise almost everything, what’s next the privatisation of the Police Service?