Local people in Moray are disappointed by an official decision to stop a party marking the retirement of RAF Lossiemouth's search and rescue helicopters , because of rules covering the general election.
In particular the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is understood to be nervous about the 'purdah' period when public bodies are restricted in what they can do or say in the weeks before an election.
The RAF's Sea King helicopters have been providing search and rescue (SAR) services on the sea and in the mountains for almost 40 years. But as from Arpil 1 they will be replaced by a civilian operation based in Inverness, operated by a private company for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
Members of 202 Squadron at RAF Lossiemouth had organised a farewell celebration in a pub in Elgin for the crews and the local community. But it emerged they had been ordered by the MoD to abandon the event scheduled for April 2.
Moray MP and SNP Defence Angus Robertson had hoped to attend. He said
"It is a great shame that the Moray community are being denied the opportunity to personally thank personnel from 202 Squadron. This apparent order from the Chain of Command adds insult to the injury caused by a widely opposed privatisation of this vital service. He said there was massive public respect respect for the RAF SAR crews "with the familiar yellow Sea King regularly seen in the air heading to challenging rescues in the North Sea, in the Cairngorms and further afield. "
But a spokesman for the RAF said "The SAR Force had concerns regarding the timing (purdah) and the extensive list of invitees at a proposed public event, leading to a decision being made by the SAR Force to change the format of the event. Work is underway to ascertain if an alternative event can be held on-base for invited guests with a separate event for the families of SAR personnel."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article