'Virtual' open day for lifesavers at Fleetwood's Coastwatch station

The team from National Coastwatch Institution (NCI) at Rossall Point, Fleetwood, will celebrate the first National Coastwatch Day on Saturday August 28 in an innovative way.

To mark the event the Coastwatch members hoped to stage an open day so the pubic could get a better understanding of their work, but the Wyre Council-owned Rossall Observation Tower where they are based is currently not open to the public.

So the Coastwatchers commissioned a local film maker, Juliette Gregson, to shoot a film of them in their base and on National Coastwatch Day the film will go 'live' on the group's website.

The team, based at the observation tower at Rossall Point, use an array of state-of-art equipment to scan the coast to ensure no one is in trouble on the shore or out to sea, and they work closely with the RNLI and Coastguards.

The Fleetwood NCI’s membership is comprised completely of volunteers and there is a presence at the Rossall Point tower on 365 days per year.

Martyn Cripps, station manager at NCI Fleetwood said: "We wanted to celebrate the first National Coastwatch Day and help raise the profile of our work here in Fleetwood, as well as

raising much needed funds.

"We want to thank Juliette for her time and support in helping us to do something a little different on this special day.’

National Coastwatch started at Bass Point, Cornwall in 1994, following the closure of many small Coastguard look-out towers around UK shores.

The volunteers reopened the old Coastguard station, as they wanted to help keep eyes around our coasts and assist the Coastguard in keeping our shores safe.

In Fleetwood, the volunteer Coastwatchers took over the old Coastguard tower at Rossall Point, in 2008 and moved into the newly-built Rossall Observation Tower in 2013.

They were renamed NCI Fleetwood in 2019.

There are now 56 Coastwatch stations in the UK and NCI

Fleetwood is the furthest north and is operational every day of the year.

The specially produced film will show views of Morecambe Bay from the top of the tower at Rossall Point, as well as a ‘guided tour’ of the equipment used by the volunteers, inside the

NCI station.

For details of the video and to make a donation to the charity go to: www.ncifleetwood.co.uk.

Further information is available at facebook.com/ncifleetwood and on Twitter @rossallpoint on the 28 th August.