Co-ordinating staff for Falmouth Coastguard are set to relocate to for two weeks this summer while the station is refitted as part of the agency’s restructuring.

Workers will be sent to the new National Marine Operations Centre at Fareham while their operations centre is refitted, meaning all calls to the Falmouth centre and any operations co-ordination will be carried out by personnel 200 miles away.

James Instance, manager at the Falmouth rescue centre, said: “There will be people working at the station, but the controllers will be at another location.

“The op room will be out of action, but the equipment will be in place and the information will be transferred to another location”

He also downplayed claims from campaign group Coastguard SOS which claimed that during 2013 Falmouth Coastguard’s operations centre had been understaffed on 23 per cent of shifts.

Mr Instance said the figures were outdated, and the centre had now improved its staffing rates.

He said: “We did have staff who retired and so we were understaffed, but since then our numbers of staff have picked up.

“It didn’t have any impact on our capability, although the retirements did mean we were below the complement “Instead of 26 people for a team we had 21, but in the last 12 months we’re back at full staff levels.”