Fears over beach safety after Sea Palling lifeboat station suspended from answering 999 calls

Fears have been raised that lives may be lost after it emerged a lifeboat station on a beach just metres from where four people were rescued was unable to respond because its licence had been suspended.

The independent lifeboat at Sea Palling in Norfolk is being investigated because of complaints lodged with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA).

As a result, the group of lifesaving volunteers are not receiving emergency calls - meaning that the first they heard of Tuesday night's rescue of two adults and two children was when it was reported on the news.

They will not be allowed to resume service until an investigation is concluded, with no indication from the MCA of how long that might take, nor of the nature of the complaints.

The agency said it was working to resolve the matter but the MP for the area has called for a solution to be found urgently before it costs lives.

Duncan Baker, the Conservative member for North Norfolk, said: "Unfortunately, now we have had three separate instances where there has been potential life-threatening issues and the lifeboat cannot be called out because it's suspended.

"We have to find out why they've been suspended and whatever has happened it needs to get back into operation as quickly as possible because an accident in the water could happen at any moment.

"We don't want to be in a situation where it is something by luck that helps save someone's life: we need our life boat crews fully operational."

During Tuesday's rescue, two adults and two children were reported to be in difficulty and help had to be called from the nearby RNLI lifeboat at Happisburgh, three miles away.

By the time they arrived, the group had been pulled from the water and brought to the shore by a passing fishing vessel.

Mick Clarke, the coxswain of the Sea Palling lifeboat, said his team wanted to be back out on the water responding to calls.

"We're really frustrated. As a crew we've got £100,000 of kit we've been trained to use, but we've been stood down by Humber coastguard," he said.

"We've had three incidents in less than three weeks on this beach, with last night being the largest. We can't do anything about it.

"We're not being paged so we can't find out about an incident unless we are paged. So we're very frustrated.

"And when the children break up for the holidays in the next two to three weeks, we are going to be rammed."

A spokesperson for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: “A number of complaints have been received by HM Coastguard about the Sea Palling Independent Lifeboat station.

"A decision was made to stand down the service while those complaints are looked into. That neither implies nor imputes wrongdoing and we are working with them to bring it back into service as soon as possible.

“While we look into these complaints, it would be inappropriate to comment further."

The spokesperson said the coastguard had "a range of search and rescue assets" including other lifeboats, helicopter, and rescue teams to respond to emergencies.

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