Fire Service incident at Pennington over the weekend

Leigh Ornithological Society (formed 1971)   

Hi all regarding the Fire Service incident at Pennington over the weekend, when rescue boats strayed into the reserve part of the water.

i emailed the station manager highlighting the disturbance caused. He was quick to reply and we have since had a discussion by telephone, to work out a protocol for future training so they don't coincide with either sailing regattas and most importantly monthly WeBS counting.

I will provided a contacts list for them, so hopefully it won't happen again.  Below is the Station Managers explanation (for security reasons i have removed his contact details)

Dear Mr Shallcross,

I have spoken to the crews involved in the training exercise on Pennington flash over the weekend, and they informed me that they had inadvertently strayed into the green marker buoys due to lack of knowledge of what this demarcation meant, upon this a safety vessel from the sailing club raced to the boat crew and informed them that they were in the nature reserve section of the flash, upon hearing these instructions they manoeuvred out of the area, also to my knowledge no crews purposely strayed into any environmentally delicate areas.

I can only apologise at any upset caused, and inform you that our crews would not intentionally cause distress to wildlife as this goes against what Firefighters and our Service represents.

The organiser of the training had tried numerous departments within Wigan Borough Council to ask for permission to use the flash, but he had no luck, if you have such contact details and would be kind enough to share these with me so we can ensure that this does not happen again I would be very appreciative.

The training coincidentally was to further enhance the skill sets of our boat crews for National and International deployments into flood stricken areas to render humanitarian services to people and animals in distress, I can assure you our crews are highly professional and sensitive to environmental issues.

If you are still unhappy with my response please do not hesitate to contact me and we can discuss this further.

Once again my apologies on behalf of Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service.

Kind regards        Station Manager
 
 
David Shallcross
Chairman,