PORTLAND Coastguard Station is to be axed.

The local maritime community has been left reeling at the shock government announcement and claim the decision could cost lives.

A total of 26 coastguard officers who are based at the Weymouth harbourside station stand to lose their jobs and will be asked to reapply for their roles.

There was hope the station could be saved after campaigners fought to keep it open, but after an extended consultation the governrnent announced that Portland was one of eight UK coastguard stations that would be axed.

No closing date has been announced yet but it will cease operations some time between 2013 and 2014.

Emergency calls will now be made to a 24 hour maritime operations centre based in Hampshire or which will replace the existing centre at Lee-on-Solent and cover the area currently covered by Portland.

The centre in Falmouth will stay will cover the most westerly parts of the south coast.

The news comes in the same week that seafarers celebrated as the future of Portland’s search and rescue helicopter was secured under a new contract that could last until 2018.

But the coastguards responsible for calling in the helicopter will now be based outside the county.

Other centres that will be closed - over the period from 2012 to 2014/15 - are Swansea, Clyde and Forth in Scotland, Liverpool, Great Yarmouth, Brixham in Devon, and Walton on the Naze in Essex.

The scrapped centres will save the government just £4.6 million a year.

Plans for major cuts to the service have been scaled back, transport minister Philip Hammond said, as the number of centres was set to be reduced from 18 to eight.

But Mr Hammond said 10 centres that were operational 24 hours would remain, as would a smaller station in London.

South Dorset MP Richard Drax hit out at the government and said he was ‘angry and disappointed and ‘sympathetic’ to the local coastguards who face job losses.

He said: “I’ve fought to retain this service from the beginning.

“I disagreed with the government from the outset and I still disagree with the government.

“I think this is a bad decision, a very bad decision.

“I’m extremely disappointed in the local government and the shipping minister.”

Mr Drax praised the local coastguard watch service.

He said: “These ladies and gentlemen don’t do this job for the money, they do it for the love of the job and for the local communities. These people are all passionate people who are real treasures.

“Now this intimacy and knowledge and experience that these local watch managers have is lost.”