As one of more than 18,000 who signed the e-petition to save the Portland Coastguard helicopter I was disappointed to receive an email from HM Government e-petitions this morning announcing that the petition had been rejected by the Secretary of State simply because ‘there is already an e-petition about this issue’.

However, on the positive side, a new e-petition has been created which will be open until July 30 2013 but it is imperative that everyone who signed the original e-petition signs this one as well.

The link to the new e-petition is epetitions.direct.gov.uk/ petitions/36619 My understanding is that we need 100,000 signatures in order to have the matter raised in Parliament so I would encourage anyone who values the protection provided by the Portland Coastguard helicopter (to visitors, passers by and residents alike) to sign this new e-petition NOW.

This is literally a matter of life or death.

Bob Goulding
Wakeham
Portland