PORTLAND Coastguard station, which handles search and rescue operations for Dorset, is to close.

There was hope the Weymouth Harbourside centre would be saved after the Government watered down its plans to drastically reduce the number of coastguard stations.

Original proposals envisaged cutting the centres from 19 to eight, with three remaining open 24 hours a day.

But today Transport Secretary Philip Hammond announced that 11 centres would remain and that they would all be 24-hour operational.

There will be one maritime operations centre covering the Southampton and Portsmouth area which will replace the existing centre at Lee-on-Solent in Hampshire and cover the area now covered by Portland.

The centres that will be closed between 2012 to 2014/15 are Swansea, Portland, Clyde and Forth in Scotland, Liverpool, Great Yarmouth, Brixham in Devon, and Walton on the Naze in Essex.