Mountain rescuers at work in the Lake District

Downing Street has responded to a petition containing nearly 7,000 signatures which urged the Government to drop plans to introduce new radio charges which could hit mountain rescue teams.

The reply, from Gordon Brown’s office, says Ofcom – which governs the radio spectrum – has no plans to charge teams directly. Ofcom will, says the Government, conduct further consultation on the issue next year.

The response to the online petition, which attracted numerous contributions from the mountain-rescue community among its 6,920 names, said: “The Government recognises the valuable and often dangerous work of all those people who give up their time to become members of the mountain rescue services.

“Most radio channels used by lowland [sic] search and rescue teams are assigned to and paid for by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which is an executive agency of the Department for Transport funded by general taxation.

“The fees which the MCA pays for these channels already reflect the value of the spectrum, rather than just the administrative cost of processing licences.

“The Government currently has no plans to change these arrangements, nor does the Office of Communications (Ofcom) have plans to impose a charge directly on mountain rescue teams for the use of these channels.”

Although the statement should assuage some of the MRTs’ concerns about extra radio costs, there still remains the possibility any reallocation of radio frequencies could cause a squeeze on those used by rescue teams at present.

Ofcom received submissions from 33 mountain rescue bodies, as well as the Mountaineering Council of Scotland.